Living Labs are open innovation ecosystems that operate in real-life environments and deploy iterative feedback processes throughout an innovation’s lifecycle to generate sustainable impact(s). Common characteristics of living labs include active user involvement, real-life settings, and multi-stakeholder participation, and common themes or trends found in living labs include co-creation, rapid prototyping, and scaling up innovations and businesses to provide joint value to involved stakeholders.
A key component of Living Labs is that they orchestrate collaboration among citizens, research organizations, companies, and government agencies. They operate across various domains, including agriculture, health and well-being, culture, mobility, smart cities, energy, social inclusion, social innovation, education, and government.

FOODCITYBOOST embraces the philosophy of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), which ensures user-centred, open innovation and a systemic user-creation approach, and deploys the concept within urban agriculture.
FOODCITYBOOST’s Living Labs represent a vibrant intersection where communities, practitioners and innovators, academics and researchers, policymakers, and civilians prototype, test, and refine proposed solutions in real-life conditions. A common denominator in living labs is the real-life testing and applicability, where the various themes FOODCITYBOOST will be expanded upon.

Within FOODCITYBOOST’s partnership we’ve set up a network of six unique living labs situated in:
* Sabiedriba Ar Ierobezotu Atbildibubc Manufaktura in Riga, Latvia
* Gorichka in Sofia, Bulgaria
* Vlaamse Landmaatschappij in Flanders and Brussels, Belgium
* Fundacja Ekorozwoju in Wroclaw, Poland
* Fundacion Entretantos in Valladolid, Spain
* and Flevo Campus in Almere, The Netherlands.
FOODCITYBOOST, through its Living Labs, will not only enhance knowledge sharing but also contribute to the refinement of policy frameworks. It will promote the adoption of scalable, sustainable, urban agriculture models tailored to the unique ecological, social, and economic landscapes of different communities and stakeholders. This hands-on, inclusive approach is expected to yield practical insights into the pressing challenges of urban sustainability, food security, employment, social cohesion, and education.
Stay tuned for further updates!