New members and sites are joining CISL’s Living Lab which connects innovators, businesses and policymakers to support peer learning and co-innovation at the forefront of practice, in an market shaping initiative.
Inspired by the pioneering work of the Entopia Building – a deep sustainable retrofitted innovation hub co-locating startups and companies with CISL - the Living Lab helps organisations test, demonstrate and prove new approaches in real-world settings, generating the evidence and partnerships needed for sustainability innovations in the built environment to be adopted more rapidly.
The expansion marks a significant milestone for the initiative, which was launched last year with the support of its founding member The Crown Estate, at a living lab summit of over 100 professional and academics, and now supports a growing pipeline of innovation partnerships, projects and pilots.
Over the past year, CISL and The Crown Estate have worked through a series of Living Lab workshops focused on the future regeneration of Cambridge Business Park. With input from CISL experts, innovators and academics, the partners explored how circular economy principles can be embedded into large-scale development. Having identified the need for new market infrastructure and partnerships to enable reuse, the partners are now exploring the potential for a local materials reuse hub. This would bring together developers, contractors, local organisations, training providers, local authorities and innovators to keep valuable materials in circulation and reduce waste across the city.
Cambridge headquartered engineering global industrial software company and CISL Corporate Leaders Group member AVEVA has also joined the initiative as an innovation partner and test bed provider. AVEVA’s leadership in digital twin technology and industrial AI and analytics brings new insight and opportunities for living lab members.
Alongside corporate partners, the living lab network includes a growing number of public and civic organisations including Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge City Council and NHS Estates. Together, they are helping create a network of real-world test beds where innovators can prove solutions alongside asset owners, operators and communities.
The value of this approach is already being demonstrated through collaborations emerging from the network. Decent Energy, a startup member of the living lab, is working with Hills Road Sixth Form College to embed its software to identify energy-saving opportunities and optimise renewable energy use; while a range of additional pilots are being developed with partners across Cambridge.
The Living Lab is a local manifestation of a national ambition. Supporting the UK Government's Industrial Strategy by enabling impactful innovations to be adopted across industries and sectors and the UK's most promising innovators to start, scale and stay in the UK.
The national scaling of the Living Lab's approach is being undertaken in partnership with Connected Places Catapult. The Living Lab will be supported by frameworks and data architecture developed at the Catapult who are pioneering the concept of an ‘innovation passport’. This work will enable proof of value and credibility of the business developed by participating in a test bed to travel. It will offer structured, trusted evidence to lower the risk of the purchasing partner and drive the adoption of transformative innovations.
By collaborating, CISL and Connected Places Catapult are ensuring national alignment on connected testbeds and innovation passports. This will provide the structured evidence SMEs need to avoid the repeated validation of their solutions, accelerating adoption across places, sectors and clients.
The Living Lab recently secured funding from Water Efficiency Cambridgeshire Fund alongside partners including Churchill College, NHS Estates and Hills Road 6th Form College to pilot and prove water-saving technologies for regional water resilience. The funding will enable new pilots across partner sites, strengthening the Living Lab's role as a platform where organisations can trial solutions in practice, generate evidence, share insights, and build the partnerships needed to scale impact.
The Living Lab now connects organisations spanning the public, private and academic sectors, using Cambridge as a connected test bed for innovation that can shape the leading edge of practice in the built environment. By bringing together innovators, asset owners, businesses, policymakers and Cambridge researchers, CISL aims to help shape the market conditions, policies and regulations needed to accelerate the adoption of sustainable solutions.
As the network continues to grow, CISL is focused on turning local experimentation into practical models that can be replicated elsewhere, helping create the conditions for future markets to emerge and enabling sustainable solutions to scale more quickly across the economy.
QUOTES
James Cole, Chief Innovation Officer at CISL:
“Many of the solutions we need for a resilient and sustainable built environment already exist. The challenge is building the market infrastructure to enable them to scale. Through our Living Lab, we're bringing together pioneering innovators, businesses, public-sector partners and academics to provide the real-world test beds and partnerships needed to accelerate adoption. This aligns with Innovate UK's renewed mission ‘to help the UK's most promising innovators start, scale and stay in the UK.”
John Aston, Pro VC, University of Cambridge:
“Many of today’s challenges require closer integration of research, innovation and practical implementation. The Living Lab brings together researchers, businesses, innovators and public sector partners to tackle shared challenges in real-world settings - helping turn knowledge into practical solutions and demonstrating how Cambridge’s research strengths, innovation ecosystem and civic partnerships can deliver impact locally and beyond.”
Erika Lewis, Chief Executive at Connected Places Catapult:
“The innovative high-potential businesses we work with tell us that without structured evidence of their credibility and concept there is a constant need to re-prove what they are doing with every new customer. By developing connected testbeds and innovation passports, we are working to remove this barrier to adoption and create the conditions for businesses to scale more easily.”
Paul Bristow, Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough:
“The value of the Living Lab is that it tests innovation where it has to work: in real places, with real constraints, alongside the organisations that could adopt it. That matters because sustainable development will not scale through good intentions alone; it needs evidence, confidence and routes into the market. Cambridge can help show how local experimentation becomes national progress.”
Fiona Daly, Director of Estates Sustainability and Deputy Director of Estates, NHS England:
“We are excited to be working with CISL's Living Lab to explore innovative technologies and approaches in real-world settings. The collaboration provides valuable opportunities to generate evidence, share learning, and better understand how new solutions could help create a modern, resilient and sustainable NHS estate for patients and staff.”
Sophie Miremadi, Vice President, Global Government Affairs and Public Policy at AVEVA:
“The Living Lab provides a unique opportunity to collaborate with innovators, public sector organisations and fellow industry partners to explore practical solutions to shared sustainability challenges.”
Rachel Hooper, Chief Operating Officer Hills Road Sixth Form College:
“The Living Lab has connected us with organisations and expertise that we would not otherwise have accessed, helping us identify new opportunities to improve building performance and reduce energy use.”
Tom Cox, Founder/CEO, Decent Energy:
“Our work with Hills Road Sixth Form College is a great example of what the Living Lab enables — accelerating our route to market as a trusted member and helping identify opportunities to make meaningful cost and carbon savings with our platform. Proving what works in practice here in Cambridge is exactly how promising technology earns the confidence to scale, and we're excited about the wider opportunity to help buildings across the UK cut energy use and emissions.”