Smart Community Labs – Interdisciplinary Innovation Spaces for Sustainable Living Environments
Smart Community Labs are living laboratories of the future – spaces where academic knowledge, technological innovation, and societal needs come together. In these open environments for experimentation and development, practical solutions are created to address key challenges of our time: the energy transition, sustainable mobility, digital transformation, demographic change, and the responsible use of natural resources.
An Integrative Approach – Academia as a Driver of Smart Communities
Developing intelligent cities and regions is a highly complex task that requires input from a wide range of disciplines. Smart Community Labs bring together expertise from technology, social sciences, design, education, and economics. The result: solutions that are not only technologically advanced but also socially responsible and economically viable.
Disciplinary Contributions at a Glance
Engineering and technology sciences
Develop sustainable infrastructures, intelligent energy systems, and connected mobility solutions.
Social sciences
Examine societal dynamics, participation processes, and the acceptance of smart technologies.
Urban and spatial planning
Shape liveable, functionally integrated, and resilient urban and rural spaces.
Design, architecture and the arts
Enhance the aesthetic and cultural quality of public spaces and foster emotional connection with the environment.
Education sciences
Design learning formats for a future-oriented society in the face of digital and technological change.
Economics and public administration
Analyse financing models, governance structures, and innovation ecosystems for sustainable implementation.
Our Vision
Because smart communities are not built by technology alone – they emerge through cooperation, openness, and the courage to shape the future together.
By establishing a networked Smart Community Lab on campus, we aim to create a visible testbed for interdisciplinary research, teaching, and knowledge transfer. It will offer inspiration for social innovation and strengthen both local and international collaboration.
Beyond the formal programme, participants took part in networking activities including an intercultural evening and group visits to historic innovation sites in Vienna. A concluding session allowed the groups to pitch their co-developed Living Lab concepts, discuss funding opportunities, and plan follow-up activities under Erasmus+ or Horizon Europe.
The BIP fostered not only knowledge exchange but also concrete steps toward the creation of a European Smart Community Lab network. As such, it exemplified the motto of the project: Think global, act local—and build together.
Participants
