The Role of Urban Living Labs in Fostering Sustainable Cities - Insights from Sweden

Abstract: Cities face growing pressures from increasing populations, giving rise to environmental and social problems. The transition towards more sustainable urban areas has thus become an urgent matter, demanding innovative solutions and means to test and deploy them. Urban Living Labs (ULLs) have emerged as a new approach to experimentation in real-life city settings. This thesis seeks to examine how ULLs can contribute to sustainability transitions by examining their goals, visions, operations, and evaluation. The contribution of ULL to sustainability transitions is assessed via mapping ULLs in Sweden and analysing four in-depth ULL case studies (i.e. UbiGo, Hållbarheten, Shape Your World, and Fabriken) through the lens of Transition Management. This study finds that the goals and visions of ULLs vary greatly, and that their contributions to sustainability can be either direct or indirect, both playing an important role in transitions. Furthermore, the ways in which the ULL evaluation is performed as well as what aspects are evaluated differs between the ULLs. A higher number of actors involved in ULLs can catalyse sustainability transitions due to a broader spread of knowledge reaching further into several domains of society. In addition, this study reflects on the importance of user involvement and their ability to impact ULL operations, how ULLs fit into the Transition Management Cycle,and how requirements set by funding bodies might affect the learning produced in ULLs.