Living Labs
What are living labs?
Living labs are relational infrastructure that enables people to work together to explore challenges, experiment, prototype and test concepts in real-world contexts.
Living labs bring together researchers, industry partners and civil society to focus on societal challenges through co-creation and open innovation approaches.
Report: Advancing University Living Labs
Based on learnings across a decade from nine Living Labs developed in partnership with Monash University, this report uses these case studies to describe a contemporary approach to establishing a University Living Lab.
Benefits of living labs
Accelerating co-creation
Addressing complex challenges by facilitating co-creation in partnership with business, government, civil society, nonprofits and researchers.
Translating research
Action research in real-world environments blends existing evidence with new place-based insights which result in solutions co-designed with communities.
Exploring the emerging future
Building rigour around how to explore aspects of the future we can’t plan for because they are too complex—enabling partners to test before they invest.
Our Infrastructure
Physical and digital assets
We leverage Monash University’s world class research platforms, global campus footprint, teaching facilities, cutting-edge digital infrastructure, applied research locations and partner sites to offer a unique network of assets to explore, test and implement new solutions.
Capability and best practice
We employ the hard won skills and experience from running living labs in Australia and around the world, our localised knowledge base, and the best practice knowledge, resources and capability building from the international living lab community.
Convening and relationships
We bring a wealth of relationships across academia, government, business, nonprofit and civil society to the table to complement the convening power needed to form new initiatives around bold and ambitious challenges.
Strategic advisory services
We invest in specialist staff who understand the best practice blend of structuring, enabling and empowering teams to lead living labs throughout the lifecycle, and make this available to member labs through our strategic advisory service.
Living labs at Monash
Learn more about some of our living labs, which are at a range of stages of development.
Net Zero Precincts living Lab
Supporting the net zero transition through experiments in energy, mobility, buildings, local governance, circularity, data & automation
Read more
Conceptual Playworlds
Support early childhood educators around the world to harness the power of play to teach STEM to young children
Read more
Fire To Flourish
Advancing community-led disaster recovery and long-term resilience with communities across Australia
Read more
Citarum River Project
Transforming the most polluted river in the world into a clean, healthy, and productive place that nurtures the communities that rely on the river for their survival
Read more
MCHRI
Delivering health impact by partnering with stakeholders to co-create knowledge and use implementation to deliver impact through equitable, quality healthcare and public health
Read more
National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA)
Transforming health related to ageing for all Australians
Read more
Zero Emission Bus living Lab
Advancing the transition to safe, reliable and efficient EV Bus fleets
Read more
The Victorian Heart Hospital
Creating an integrated model of cardio care, research and workforce development for the future of heart health in Victoria
Read moreWhy are living labs important?
Enabling scale
Get involved
To learn more about living labs, or to connect with an existing living lab, please email to: sam.rye@monash.edu