Northern Connections

Living Labs in the making

16 January 2018 - Published by Rikke Schak Toustrup-Jensen

Living Test Laboratories or Living Labs are a platform where companies can test their technologies in a real environment. Currently, the Northern Connections project is working on a way to set the criteria to define when a location can be called a Living Lab. This means brand new test possibilities for CLEAN members and their innovative technologies in 2018, when the first workshops will be held.

70 participants from the Northern Connections project met at the biannual partner meeting in Kiel to define the criteria for Living Labs and the forward-looking plan for workshops in relation to the project. These workshops will focus on SME's green technologies in the national Living Labs in the North Sea Region.

The locations which match the criteria will become the future demonstration locations for various innovative, green technologies, which require documented functionalities in a real-world environment before a full-scale commercialisation of the product. However, there is a specific need for these Living Labs to also have an investment capacity in relation to the companies that are involved. Among the CLEAN members, there are several SMEs, who demand such a test platform.

Through the Northern Connections project, this opportunity will be extended to Living Labs in the partner countries around the North Sea Region: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and Sweden. Living Lab Specification form.

http://www.northsearegion.eu/northern-connections