Urban Labs and Urban Living Labs in Poland: Models, Practices, and Potential in Urban Transformation

Abstract

Cities increasingly use experimental and participatory approaches to address sustainability challenges, yet knowledge about Urban Labs (ULs) and Urban Living Labs (ULLs) in Central and Eastern Europe remains limited. This article provides the first nationwide overview of ULs and ULLs in Poland and examines their role in sustainable urban transformation. Using desk research based on systematic searches of official websites, government reports, EU programme databases, academic sources, and social media, 34 ULs and 15 ULL initiatives operating as of July 2025 were identified. The cases were geolocated and analysed in terms of funding, collaboration models, and thematic orientations. ULs were classified into four functional types, while ULLs were grouped by their main areas of activity. The results indicate two development paths: a centralised model linked to national programmes and a bottom-up model driven by NGOs, universities, and civic initiatives. Most cases are concentrated in metropolitan areas, remain rare in towns with fewer than 60,000 inhabitants, and depend on short-term external funding. Despite organisational diversity, the initiatives consistently use co-creation, stakeholder engagement, and rapid prototyping. The study provides a first empirical evidence base for Poland and identifies challenges related to institutional durability and the scaling of urban innovation.

1. Introduction

The Living Labs concept gained traction in Poland towards the end of the 2010s, largely through the adaptation of European frameworks. A key impetus was the 2018 project by the Institute for Urban and Regional Development (IRMiR), which developed a national concept of Urban Labs tailored to the specificities of Polish cities. The first pilot projects—Urban Lab Rzeszów and Urban Lab Gdynia—were launched in 2019, focusing on co-governance of the city and civic participation [1]. Their success led to the emergence of further municipal laboratories, such as Metrolab GZM in Katowice, UrsynLab in Warsaw, and SmartCity Lab Chełm. Polish Urban Labs operate across multiple domains relevant to sustainable urban development, including mobility, the circular economy, education, health, and energy, and they are funded predominantly through EU programmes and national public sources.

This paper aims (a) to map and critically characterise Urban Labs (ULs) and Urban Living Labs (ULLs) in Poland; (b) to develop an original typology based on scale, operational model, and stakeholder structure; (c) to examine their contribution to sustainable urban transformation; and (d) to assess their diversity, scale, and developmental dynamics.

Given the relatively recent emergence of ULs and ULLs in Poland, this study offers an initial basis for identifying major patterns in their development and for formulating preliminary conclusions and recommendations. Due to the lack of a centralised, official register of ULs and ULLs in Poland, this article constitutes the first comprehensive step towards creating a full database on the subject. The results may be particularly valuable for researchers and practitioners from Central Europe, offering an overview of solutions implemented in Poland.

To guide the analysis, three research questions are formulated:

• (RQ1) What types of Urban Labs and Urban Living Labs operate in Poland, and what is their spatial distribution?
• (RQ2) What organisational, funding, and collaboration models characterise these initiatives?
• (RQ3) How do ULs and ULLs contribute to sustainable urban transformation?

At a broader level, the article aims to better understand how ULs and ULLs are taking shape in Poland and what this says about the opportunities and limits of this still emerging field.

2. Literature Review

Contemporary cities are confronted with increasingly complex sustainability challenges that require more experimental, participatory, and adaptive forms of governance. Urban Labs (ULs) and Urban Living Labs (ULLs) have gained importance as organisational settings through which cities can co-create, test, and refine responses to these challenges. Although both concepts originate from the same idea of the “urban laboratory” and use similar terminology (experiment, co-creation, real-life setting), they play different, complementary roles in the innovation chain [2,3,4]. A UL can be understood as a broad platform for dialogue, collaboration, and diverse experiments, often located in a specific space, engaging residents and local communities in various activities. On the other hand, a ULL is a parametrised, iterative test of specific solutions in a real urban environment, carried out within a defined time frame. It is a more task-oriented network of places and stakeholders. Akasaka et al. emphasise that “platform-level” Living Labs are designed as permanent infrastructures supporting many subsequent experiments, while most “project-based” initiatives (as ULLs are defined in this article) have a predetermined time horizon and budget, which limits their long-term impact [5].

Distinguishing between these two concepts helps organise the continuum of practices and reduces the terminological imprecision often found in the literature, where both acronyms are used interchangeably [6,7,8]. A city, in cooperation with stakeholders, may first create a UL to generate ideas and build partnerships, and then launch thematic ULLs within it. This distinction helps practitioners choose between a platform for dialogue and coordination and a more focused experimental instrument. ULs and ULLs should therefore be seen as complementary rather than competing approaches to urban innovation and city governance [9]. For analytical clarity, when referring jointly to both Urban Labs and Urban Living Labs, the full terms or their abbreviations (ULs, ULLs) are used throughout the paper.

The idea of the “city as a laboratory” has a long history. Participatory initiatives in urban planning already emerged in Scandinavia in the 1960s and 1970s (e.g., cooperative design approaches). In the 1980s, social experiments involving information technology developed, and in the 1990s the concept of the “digital city,” which integrated residents, authorities, and businesses through new technologies, gained prominence [8]. The term “living laboratory” was introduced by Prof. William J. Mitchell of MIT in the mid-1990s to describe an environment in which everyday human behaviour can be observed under near-real conditions [10]. The institutionalisation of the living-lab concept in Europe advanced with the creation of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) in 2006, which promoted open innovation and multi-stakeholder collaboration [11]. From the mid-2010s, the approach migrated to urban contexts, and the term “urban living lab” was popularised by the Joint Programming Initiative “Urban Europe” (JPI Urban Europe). Most ULLs focus on techno-economic innovation, the circular economy, transport, and building energy retrofits. Socially oriented variants are rarer [12]; in many cities, these roles are more commonly undertaken by municipal ULs.

The origins of these laboratories are closely tied to the evolution of urban governance and the search for new approaches to complex urbanisation challenges. In practice, they function as instruments aligned with New Urbanism, fostering co-creation between local authorities and communities, with residents treated as central stakeholders in innovation processes [13]. The growth of these initiatives has accompanied the shift from New Public Management (NPM) to New Public Governance (NPG), where they are increasingly recognised as vehicles for co-production and co-management of public services [14]. Operating as 4P (public–private–people) partnerships, these labs convene local authorities, industry, academia, and residents to co-design and test innovations. Experiments conducted in real-world urban settings enable safe testing and subsequent incorporation into municipal policies and investment plans, while strengthening democratic legitimacy and social capital through active citizen participation. Urban labs are associated with the Smart City 3.0 paradigm [15], in which a city’s “intelligence” arises not only from top-down, technocratic deployments but from residents’ active involvement [16]. The development of these laboratories supports cities’ sustainability objectives. For example, UN-Habitat’s Global Network of Urban Planning and Design Labs helps translate the Sustainable Development Goals into practice, including SDG 11 on inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities [17].

Both types of urban lab initiatives are referred to in the literature as open innovation ecosystems in which various stakeholders discuss and develop solutions to address contemporary urban problems. They can be initiated by companies, local institutions, or citizens, facilitating collaboration to solve complex urban problems [18]. Urban Labs are diverse in many ways, but they share a common core and characteristics, resulting from the diversity and complexity of the city as a system, the level of development and local conditions [19]. As set out in the Guidelines for Urban Labs [6], “urban lab” is treated as a dynamic umbrella term encompassing often-overlapping experimental approaches in urban contexts. Read in this light, the typology indicates several overarching domains of activity for urban labs, without altering the authors’ original definitions.

Governance and public services. City labs act as participatory platforms—often initiated and partly funded by local government—where public bodies and stakeholders learn about and trial new ways of tackling urban challenges. Under a similar remit, policy labs and govlabs prototype policies and services, drawing on data, digital tools, and collaborative methods to improve decision-making. Many municipalities also run lab-like programmes that adopt these practices without using the label, operating from a citizen-centred perspective and with a mandate to experiment in everyday administration and service delivery.

Design-led and academic strands. Design Lab approaches bring together Gov Labs, Innovation Labs, Policy Labs, and DESIS Labs. They are design-led, typically less technology-centric than living-lab approaches, and frequently oriented towards urban sustainability and governance experimentation. DESIS Labs, embedded in universities, mobilise staff and students around design for social innovation, partnering locally while collaborating across the international network. Innovation labs support entrepreneurship and capability-building through networking and advisory work, whereas impact labs emphasise experimental learning with public–private partners and help promising projects scale—often in health, education, and sustainability.

Experimentation in real contexts. Living Lab approaches focus on user-centred co-creation and evaluation in real-world settings. Real-world laboratories (Reality Labs) function as test beds where solutions are implemented and assessed under actual conditions, providing a venue for transdisciplinary sustainability research. Makerspaces and FabLabs [20] support this by offering community workshops with tools and know-how for hands-on making and technology experimentation, frequently organised as commons-based peer production.

Systemic and social change. Change Labs pursue transdisciplinary, actionable interventions aimed at scaled, system-level transformation. Social-Innovation Labs follow a similar human-centred ethos, using social experiments to shift practice and institutions, prioritising people-focused strategies over technology- or efficiency-first logics.

Boundaries between these strands are porous, and many programmes blend elements from several groups to fit local priorities and constraints.

Focusing more specifically on Urban Living Labs (ULLs), the literature offers further detailed typologies. One key classification distinguishes three “ideal type” configurations based on their leadership and design: strategic labs, led by government or large private actors; civic labs, initiated by urban stakeholders such as universities and focused on sustainable development; and grassroots labs, driven by civil society actors and often operating with limited budgets. Complementing this, another typology identifies ULLs by their capacity to effect change, defining them as a trial for testing solutions in real-world conditions, an enclave for protected innovation, a demonstration to showcase future possibilities, or a platform to foster new collaborations. Furthermore, ULLs are often categorised by their operational domain, such as ICT, mobility, energy, social interaction, or spatial development [21].

ULs and ULLs can be linked to the broader group of innovative activities under the common name Test and Experimentation Platforms (TEPs). Among these, Ballon et al. include Prototyping platforms, Testbeds, Field trials, Market pilots, Societal pilots [22]. Chronéer et al. [9] analysed many earlier works and identified seven key components of ULLs, including: governance structure, financing model, embedding in the urban context, orientation towards nature-based solutions, set of partners and users (including citizens), applied methodology and use of ICT tools. In turn, Voytenko et al. [23], authors addressing the characteristics of ULLs by analysing case studies (a popular research method in the literature on the subject), identified five characteristic features of ULLs—geographical embeddedness in the city, experimentation and learning, user participation, leadership and evaluation and improvement. It is worth mentioning that these can also be successfully applied to typical Urban Labs in part of their activities.

ULs and ULLs are based on intersectoral collaboration models, the most common of which is the Triple Helix model (business, academia, government) [24]. In more recent approaches, and more often with Urban Labs, this is extended to the Quadruple and Quintuple Helix, also including civil society, culture, the media, and the natural environment [16,25,26,27]. These models emphasise the need for active participation of residents in the design and testing of urban innovations and their rooting in the local social and ecological context. International experience confirms the importance of these collaborative frameworks: in Finland, Juujärvi and Pesso [28] demonstrated that enabler-driven urban living labs in suburban areas require strong multi-actor collaboration to achieve co-creation goals; in the Netherlands, Scholl and Kemp [3] showed that city labs can serve as vehicles for innovation in urban planning when experimentation is structured and co-created; and the comprehensive European overview by Marvin et al. [4] highlighted the diversity of ULL models across the continent while identifying common challenges related to governance, funding, and scaling.

Europe provides a favourable environment for the development of ULs and ULLs, with a strong emphasis on innovative collaboration and sustainable urban development. The European Union and other intergovernmental bodies play a key role in creating the institutional frameworks for these initiatives. JPI Urban Europe, as a research and innovation programme, actively promotes the development of ULLs, and about half of the more than 100 projects funded by JPI Urban Europe over the past decade use the ULL methodology, confirming the commitment to integrating experimental and participatory approaches in urban development [29].

An important step in the development of the Living Labs concept was the establishment of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) in 2006, which promoted the idea of open innovation and multi-stakeholder collaboration [30]. ENoLL was tasked with fostering cooperation between cities, also in rural areas, between enterprises, universities, and citizens, extending the scope of Living Labs to areas such as energy, transport, public services, or health [31,32]. As a non-profit association, ENoLL promotes and strengthens innovative ecosystems, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and best practices across Europe. Its activities contribute to the standardisation and benchmarking of Living Lab methodologies. The European Union actively supports urban innovation through policies and initiatives conducive to the development of ULs and ULLs. The European Urban Initiative (EUI) supports the development of innovative solutions and capacity building for sustainable urban development [33,34,35].

Programmes such as Horizon Europe often encourage the creation and use of Living Labs in urban research and innovation, especially in areas related to energy, healthy soils, and climate services. These policies provide financial and institutional support, encouraging cities to adopt experimental and participatory approaches to planning and development. The emphasis on cross-border cooperation strengthens the international urban innovation movement [36].

Recent scholarship has begun to move beyond the historically strong European concentration of Urban Lab and Urban Living Lab research and has shown that these initiatives are highly context-dependent rather than universally transferable governance models. Roll et al. [12], analysing the formation of urban labs in five cities in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, argue that the field has been shaped predominantly by European cases and demonstrate that in Latin America lab formation is more directly conditioned by local political, institutional, and socio-economic contexts. From a Global South perspective, Amorim et al. [37], discussing Brazilian ULLs, show that although such initiatives are inspired by earlier models of urban experimentation, they face barriers different from those typically reported in Europe, especially in relation to resource constraints, infrastructure deficits, and the difficulty of translating participatory processes into more durable forms of urban resilience. By contrast, Shen et al. [38], drawing on the case of Shenzhen Overseas Chinese Town Wetland Park, shift attention from formal governance structures to the plural and situated forms of knowledge produced by visitors and volunteers, suggesting that ULLs in East Asia may function not only as policy instruments but also as multi-dimensional knowledge environments. Taken together, these studies indicate that the geography of urban experimentation matters: whereas European cases have often emphasised institutional design, scaling, and policy learning, evidence from Latin America, Brazil, and China points more strongly to context-sensitive formation processes, uneven governance capacities, and locally embedded forms of knowledge co-production. This broader perspective is useful for situating the Polish case within an international debate and for avoiding an overly Europe-centred understanding of Urban Labs and Urban Living Labs.

3. Materials and Methods

To meet the article’s objectives, desk-based research was undertaken, systematically searching online sources and public documents to identify and characterise ULs and ULLs operating in Poland. Data collection took place in June–July 2025; these dates serve as the reference point for the status reported for each initiative. The approach assumed that both types of urban labs leave traceable digital footprints (e.g., dedicated websites and official repositories), as they are relatively new, multi-stakeholder endeavours often supported by public or grant funding. Although information on Polish ULs and ULLs is available, it remains dispersed across heterogeneous digital sources and has not yet been consolidated into a systematic nationwide evidence base. Data collection was facilitated by the fact that ULs and ULLs typically operate openly and communicate transparently with stakeholders, reinforced by Polish legal requirements for public disclosure when public or EU funds are used [39,40,41]. To ensure methodological transparency, Figure 1 presents a block diagram of the procedure, outlining the study’s main steps.

The main sources of data were the official websites of the initiatives, government reports, including documents available in the Public Information Bulletin (BIP) [42,43], websites of funding bodies, including EU programme websites, and academic databases and journal platforms, including Scopus, Web of Science, and MDPI. Social media were also analysed in parallel, primarily official profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, to identify specific initiatives and assess their current activity. All these activities were carried out within the framework of online desk research, using advanced Google queries, social media queries and AI-based tools (Perplexity, web-based platform, https://www.perplexity.ai, accessed on 6 July 2025) to maximise and verify the set of sources. Inclusion criteria were a clear designation of an initiative as an “Urban Lab” or “Urban Living Lab” (or analogous, corresponding to the definition), operation in Poland and public availability of information on its objectives and activities.

3.1. Criteria for Reliability and Verification of Data

The reliability of the data was verified by prioritising information from official websites and government documents. Data obtained from less formal sources, such as social media or forums, were cross-verified with other independent sources where possible. For example, the declared project duration on an initiative’s website was compared with the corresponding information in grant documentation.

3.2. Methodological Limitations

This desk-based approach has several limitations. Due to the lack of an official, centralised register of ULs and ULLs in Poland and the diversity of organisational forms and definitions, there is a risk of incomplete identification of cases, especially those initiatives that do not have a strong online presence or operate under less obvious names. Information obtained from many secondary sources (websites, BIP, social media, grant documents) may have been fragmentary, outdated, or inconsistent. Transparent discussion of these limitations increases the reliability of the study. Despite these limitations, the method made it possible to identify a relatively large set of cases that is suitable for preliminary typological and spatial analysis. Commercial initiatives, including one identified in the medical sector, as well as Fab Labs and Media Labs, were excluded from the ULs and ULLs database. Media Lab initiatives operating in the fields of culture, digital media, education, history, and identity, such as those in Wrocław, Katowice, Gdańsk, Poznań, and Szczecin, were also excluded.

Examples of search queries used in this study to increase search accuracy included, among others: “urban lab*” (site:edu OR site:gov)—searching educational and government websites containing any form of the word “urban lab” (e.g., “urban labs”, “urban laboratory”); “living lab” AND city—searching for information on “living labs” in the urban context; “miejskie laboratorium” filetype:pdf—searching for PDF documents containing the term “miejskie laboratorium”, often found in grant documents, reports and publications; “smart city” + prototype—identifying links between smart city activities and urban experimentation/prototyping; inurl:urb + laba*—searching websites whose URL contains fragments related to “urban labs”. In Polish, searches were also carried out using the basic, undeclined root of the word “laboratorium”, e.g., “miasto + laboratori*”, to cover various grammatical forms. Because the Polish equivalent of “living lab” appears as “żywe laboratorium/żywe laboratoria”, additional queries combined żyw* with laboratori* (e.g., “żywe laboratorium”, “laboratorium żywe”). The desk research covered sources available up to July 2025. Popular combinations of name spellings in English, which dominate in the Polish infosphere, such as “Urban Lab”, “UrbanLab”, “Urban-Lab” and their local adaptations, were also considered.

The preliminary information gathered was used to develop a structured data card template, enabling uniform collection of comparative data. The card included ten key fields, including:

• City and spatial scope of the initiative’s activities.
• Name of the Urban Lab, Urban Living Lab, or project.
• Project duration (start and end dates).
• Funding sources.
• Key stakeholders and lead entity.
• Description of the Lab’s activities, research, initiatives, and experiments.
• Type of activity (e.g., prototyping, training, experimentation-testing).
• Applied research, training, and activation methods.
• Expected or achieved outcomes and indicators.
• Type of U-Lab according to criteria developed based on a literature review (description below).

In cases where complete data were not available on project websites, additional sources were used, such as archived press releases, official announcements, or project social media profiles. The resulting database was interpreted in the context of the literature and knowledge on Urban Labs. Classification was also carried out according to types and network affiliations of these initiatives. A map showing the distribution of ULs and ULLs in Poland, together with information on city size, was prepared in QGIS (version 3.40 Bratislava). Given the volume of empirical material, condensed case descriptions were presented in tabular form, providing a synthetic overview and typological classification for validation purposes. A list of acronyms was included to improve readability, especially for readers outside Poland.

Based on the literature review and the collected empirical material, a typology of Polish urban laboratories was developed, identifying four main types of ULs. For ULLs, the results were classified according to the scope of their primary area of interest or research.

Typology of urban laboratories and their characteristics:

• Urban Lab (policy/civic lab): These initiatives focus on co-creating solutions for urban social and administrative problems. Their space of operation is usually a physical urban site where workshops, consultations and meetings with residents take place, covering a wide range of city-related activities. They are characterised by a clear participatory and social aspect. The main actor is usually the city (municipal office) in cooperation with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), experts, and citizens. Dominant methods include design thinking, testing of public services, participatory planning, training, and creative workshops [2].
• Academic Urban Lab zone: A campus or research institute serves as an experimental testing ground for solutions in the areas of mobility, sustainable energy, or green infrastructure. The space of operation is the university, and the main actors are a team of researchers and students together with institutional partners. Complex methods are used, including real-time monitoring, equipment prototyping and simulations. Results include scientific publications, patents, and technological spin-offs, as well as educational value for students [44].
• Thematic testbed/sandbox: These laboratories act as controlled testing environments for urban technologies such as 5G networks, autonomous vehicles, or smart city sensors. They usually operate in a limited space (e.g., one street, a streetlight system). The main actors are corporations, service operators and the city as host of the infrastructure. Pilot methods with hard indicators are used. The effects are “go/no-go” decisions for scaling technology, certifications and technical recommendations [45,46].
• Hybrid Urban Lab/Living Lab: Initiatives combining features of several types, often evolving according to needs and funding. These can be, for example, Urban Labs that develop specific Living Labs within their activities.

An Urban Living Lab is a form of research conducted under real-life conditions, in which the city serves as a laboratory. It does not always require a dedicated physical site; what matters is operation within the real urban fabric, for example, in a district, housing estate, or public space. The main actors are research consortia, including universities and research institutes, supported by public administration and local communities. Key methods include action research, prototyping, and user testing. Typical outputs include implemented solutions, innovations, concrete spatial interventions, datasets, and urban policy models with scaling potential. Urban Living Labs may also be embedded in longer-term collaborative frameworks that enable experimentation beyond a single project cycle [47]. ULLs represent the most methodologically codified subtype under the Urban Lab umbrella, which warrants separate treatment. Given their in vivo protocols and international network affiliations, ULLs are presented separately. No separate typology was developed for ULLs. However, each case is assigned a label in the “Type” column indicating its main area of interest or research.

In the remainder of the article, based on the information collected, synthetic characteristics of ULs and ULLs are presented. These characteristics are based on the database fields listed above and cover geographical distribution, scale of activity, key stakeholders, collaboration models, funding sources and volumes, thematic areas, types of lab activity, methodological approaches, and achieved or planned outcomes.

4. Results

4.1. Examples and Characteristics of Urban Labs in Poland

The geographical distribution and scale of activity of Urban Labs in Poland are diverse. ULs are present in voivodeship capitals (e.g., Kraków, Poznań, Katowice, Szczecin, Lublin, Rzeszów, Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Opole, Białystok, Gdynia, Warsaw) and in smaller towns (e.g., Zielona Góra, Kielce, Chełm, Racibórz, Stalowa Wola, Gliwice, Mysłowice, Rydułtowy, Polkowice, Września, Kaczanowo, Pleszew). The “School Living Lab” network of the Code for Green Foundation (type: Thematic testbed/sandbox) operates in a distributed model, covering eight smaller school laboratories in Poznań and smaller towns in Polkowice, Września and Kaczanowo. The distribution and information on city size are shown in Figure 2 and

Table 1. Urban Labs in Poland. Basic identifying information (data up to July 2025).

No.	City and Lab Name. Population (Core City)	Headquarters, Date (Start–End)	Operator (Seat) and Funding	Stakeholders	Type
1	City for the Young Network 8 cities #ULnet (8 ULs)	Bydgoszcz (10 Mennica St, 2024); Lublin (2 Spokojna St, 13 February 2025); Toruń (50–52 Bydgoska St, January 2025); Kielce (49 Paderewskiego St, 2025); Opole (4 1 Maja St, 2025); Rzeszów (not yet determined); Zielona Góra (2b Matejki Sq, 9 May 2025); Szczecin (6 Cyfrowa St, 2025)	IRMiR; funding: Technical Assistance Programme for European Funds 2021–2027 (PTFE/ERDF). Co-financing from city councils. About PLN 4 million for each of the 8 cities	City Councils (UM), MFiPR, youth councils, youth up to 35 years old, universities, NGOs	Urban Lab Network, Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
2	School Living Lab * Network (Code for Green Foundation) 4 cities (8 ULs)	Polkowice, Września, Poznań, Kaczanów—8 schools, since 2019	Code for Green Foundation; funding: Terre des hommes, Volkswagen Belegschaftsstiftung, Norwegian Funds	Foundation, schools, local governments	Urban Lab Network, Thematic testbed/sandbox
3	Warsaw—UrbanLab WGSR UW c. 1,864,000	Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warsaw (2024–) First mentions 2022	University of Warsaw/WGSR UW (Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies)	City of Warsaw, Statistical Office in Warsaw, IRMiR, social organisations, students	Academic Urban Lab Zone
4	Kraków—CaLiLab c. 769,000	Jagiellonian University III Campus (≈65 ha), Scientific Council inauguration 29 May 2023; pilots 2024–2026	Jagiellonian University; funding: IDUB	Rectorate, faculties, CITTRU, AIP, City of Kraków	Academic Urban Lab Zone
5	Poznań—PSNC Future Labs c. 518,000	Building at Zwierzyniecka 20 Street (>2000 m2), started 30 September 2016 https://futurelabs.psnc.pl/ (accessed on 6 July 2025)	Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC); funding: Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, EDIH HPC4Poland	PSNC, City of Poznań, UAM, PP, SMEs, start-ups	Thematic testbed/sandbox
6	Poznań—Poznań CityLab c. 518,000	Poznań International Fair, opening 2025, https://poznancitylab.pl (accessed on 6 July 2025)	City of Poznań/Poznań International Fair	City of Poznań, UAM, Poznań University of Technology, PSNC, Łukasiewicz Research Network, InSpire Found., residents, local tech companies and NGOs	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
7	Katowice—Kato Science Corner × Metrolab GZM c. 283,000	Building at Pocztowa/Młyńska Street, 14 September 2023–14 June 2025	City of Katowice & GZM; funding: city and GZM (Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis) budget	City Council (UM) Katowice, GZM, university consortium, residents, NGOs	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
8	Białystok—SocLab c. 299,000	14 Lipowa Street lok. 19; Białystok and surroundings; since 2011	SocLab Foundation; funding: city budget, grants.	City Council, Wasilków municipality, schools, NGOs	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab), Hybrid Urban Living Lab (ULL)
9	Gdynia—UrbanLab Gdynia c. 244,000	Pomeranian Science and Technology Park Gdynia (PPNT, March 2019–2024)	Social Innovation Lab (LIS)—City of Gdynia; funding: POP Technical Assistance 2014–2020, city budget. PLN 3.1 million	Gdynia City Council, LIS, IRMiR, MFiPR, science, business	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
10	Toruń—GreenLab Toruń c. 199,000	Entire city; September 2023–2024; II since 2024. Edition 2025	Foundation for Sustainable Development PZR; funding: city budget and PZR grants. e.g., PLN 20,000 per edition and grants (e.g., PLN 14,000)	Toruń City Council, Dialogue Office, residents, NGOs	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
11	Rzeszów—Urban Lab Rzeszów c. 198,000	Paniaga Gallery, 3 Maja Street; October 2019–December 2022	POP pilot c. PLN 3.5 million (PLN 2.6 million EU + city); since 2023 funded by city budget; follow-up 2025–2028 PLN 2.19 million (EU + state)	City Council, IRMiR, MFiPR, universities, residents	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
12	Gliwice—Silesian Urban Lab c. 171,000	Gliwice City Centre, since 30 May 2022	Silesian University of Technology & CIS Gliwice; funding: Just Transition Fund EU	Silesian University of Technology, CIS, KRMi, GZM, residents, NGOs	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
13	Gliwice—Social Activity Laboratory—Urban Lab 5D in Gliwice c. 170,000	Social Welfare Centre; 9 Górnych Wałów Street; 1 October 2024—30 June 2026	Social Welfare Centre in Gliwice (OPS). European Funds for Silesia 2021–2027 programme and co-financed by the Just Transition Fund	City of Gliwice · Board of the Silesian Voivodeship; Municipal Management Services Board (MZUK); Gliwice Centre for Environmental Education; District councils (Sośnica, Szobiszowice); Local NGOs · Residents	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
14	Warsaw (Ursynów)—UrsynLab c. 145,000	Multikino, 60/61 KEN Ave; since 29 September 2023; cont. 2025	Ursynów District; funding: district budget, FE Mazowsza	District, SMEs, PIFE, experts, participants	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
15	Mysłowice—Urban Lab Mysłowice c. 74,000	8 Grunwaldzka Street; since 2 January 2024	Mysłowice City Council; funding: city budget	Council, MZGK, Senior Council, MOPS, PUP, NGOs	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
16	Chełm—SmartCity Lab c. 59,000	Chełm Economic Activity Centre, 3E Ceramiczna Street; 17 March 2023	ITS Poland; funding: city and EU budget	City of Chełm, ITS, universities, science partners	Thematic testbed/sandbox
17	Stalowa Wola—StaLOVE UrbanLAB c. 58,000	MBP 10 Popiełuszki Street; June 2023	SCAL & MBP; funding: city budget	City Council, MBP, IRMiR, Norwegian fund, NGOs	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
18	Racibórz—Urban Lab Racibórz c. 54,000	PKP Station (1 Dworcowy Sq); 2025	Racibórz Municipality & Halso Lab company; funding: municipality budget	Municipality, PKP S.A., IRMiR, Halso Lab, Silesian University of Technology, NGOs, residents	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
19	Rydułtowy—Szarlota LAB c. 20,000	49/56a Ofiar Terroru Street; Summer 2022	Mainly Norwegian and EEA Funds 2014–2021 (total project package for the city: PLN 15.3 million); additionally, city funds and CRIS grants.	City, CRIS, residents, NGOs, schools	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)
20	Pleszew—Compact Lab Pleszew—Multifunctional Development Centre c. 17,000	Building at the junction of Kolejowa and Ogrodowa Street; raw state September 2024, planned opening 2026	Operator: Sport Pleszew Sp. z o.o. (municipal company). City budget and Polish Government Fund: Strategic Investment Programme. Total of PLN 21 million	City and Municipality of Pleszew (leader), Sport Pleszew Sp. z o.o. (operator), local entrepreneurs, start-ups, NGOs, expert partners, and universities (to be agreed).	Urban Lab (policy/civic lab)

* Despite “Living” in the name, the activity profile aligns more with an Urban Lab. Validation links for this table are provided in Appendix A, Table A1.

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Most Urban Labs have physical headquarters serving as operational centres, a form that appears to be preferred in Poland. The scope of their activities often extends beyond the headquarters, covering the whole city, and in the case of laboratories located in Silesia (Katowice, Gliwice, Mysłowice), even the entire Górnośląsko-Zagłębiowska Metropolia (GZM), with over 2 million inhabitants living in 41 cities and municipalities. A group of eight laboratories (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab) is part of the nationwide pilot programme “Urban Lab—City for the Young”. These laboratories, located in Bydgoszcz, Toruń, Kielce, Lublin, Zielona Góra, Szczecin, Rzeszów and Opole, are characterised by similar funding sources, themes (youth engagement), and operational models (e.g., Urban Café, prototyping). This is an example of a top-down, nationally coordinated effort to disseminate the Urban Lab concept. The pilot projects in Gdynia and Rzeszów, conducted in 2019 to 2021, tested Urban Lab solutions adapted to Polish conditions. The total cost of the project amounted to PLN 6 582 045. The “Urban Lab—City for the Young” project is co-financed under the Technical Assistance for European Funds Programme 2021–2027, with an EU grant of 79.71% and 20.29% from the state budget. The municipalities co-organising the Urban Labs also contribute to the funding. Poznań CityLab (2025) is being created in Poznań, a local city initiative, similar to PSNC Future Labs in Poznań, but focusing more on social and activation issues, while PSNC Future Labs has a technical and innovative character (type: Thematic testbed/sandbox).

Other laboratories, such as CaLiLab in Kraków (type: Academic Urban Lab zone), SmartCity Lab in Chełm (type: Thematic testbed/sandbox), GreenLab in Toruń (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab oriented towards the environment), SocLab in Białystok (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab), Szarlota LAB in Rydułtowy (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab) or Compact Lab in Pleszew (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab), operate independently or within other programmes. These independent initiatives often have unique funding sources, for example, the “Excellence Initiative—Research University” programme for CaLiLab, Norwegian Funds for Stalowa Wola, Rydułtowy and Pleszew, or the city’s budget for Mysłowice.

The sources and volume of UL funding are diverse, although external funds dominate. The “Technical Assistance for European Funds 2021–2027” programme is the main source of funding for the laboratories of the “City for the Young” programme, with total budgets typically amounting to around PLN 4 million. For example, Bydgoszcz received PLN 3.98 million, Lublin PLN 4.5 million. In addition to EU funds, several laboratories, especially in smaller and medium-sized towns, are financed from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism/EEA. Information on the amount of funding for Urban Labs was difficult to access, more so than in the case of Urban Living Labs. It can be assumed that this is due to their ongoing work and multiple sources of funding. It was noted that in smaller cities, for example, the amounts of funding were high, but this is because they often include the construction or adaptation of the headquarters from the outset, infrastructure in the form of equipment, furniture and media devices, as in the case of the city of Pleszew. Larger cities have greater opportunities in this respect, as they can rent premises, for example, the Technopark office buildings in Szczecin.

Some laboratories are maintained from their own institutional resources (e.g., PSNC Future Labs in Poznań—type: Thematic testbed/sandbox) or from project grants (e.g., SocLab Foundation in Białystok—type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab). GreenLab in Toruń (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab) is co-financed by the city and non-governmental organisations. Urban Lab Rzeszów (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab), formerly a pilot, is an example of a successful transition from project funding to permanent funding from the city budget. Strategic use of EU and international funds is key to the development of Urban Labs in Poland, and their availability encourages the establishment of municipal laboratories.

Urban Labs in Poland are marked by broad, multi-helix stakeholder involvement. Collaboration commonly brings together public administration, academia, business, research institutes, civil-society organisations (including NGOs), and residents. Such configurations are evident in many labs, including those in Toruń, Stalowa Wola, Gdynia, Gliwice, Chełm, and Rzeszów.

Local governments—primarily municipal offices and municipalities—are often indicated as key partners, acting as leaders or coordinators of activities. This applies to the vast majority of the analysed laboratories, including those located in Bydgoszcz, Lublin, Toruń, Kielce, Zielona Góra, Szczecin, Rzeszów, Racibórz, Mysłowice, Opole, Warsaw (Ursynów district), Rydułtowy and Pleszew.

At the national level, the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy (MFiPR) and the Institute for Urban and Regional Development (IRMiR) play an important role, as they are consistently involved in the implementation of the “City for the Young” programme, providing substantive support and financial supervision. IRMiR is a state research institute specialising in spatial planning and urban policy. The academic environment is represented by higher education institutions, including Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz (UKW), Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (UMCS), Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (UMK), Jagiellonian University in Kraków (UJ), University of Warsaw (UW), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (UAM), Poznań University of Technology (PP), Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice (PŚ), State University of Applied Sciences in Chełm (PANS), University of Zielona Góra (UZ), Rzeszów University of Technology (PRz) and the University of Silesia in Katowice (UŚ). These universities are particularly active partners in laboratories with strong research or educational components. Non-governmental organisations, youth city councils and informal resident groups are also important, often as co-creators or direct beneficiaries of activities carried out within Urban Labs.

The business sector—including local entrepreneurs, start-ups, and technological partners (e.g., Technopark Pomerania in Szczecin, Intel/Immersify in Poznań, Lenovo/Hikvision in Chełm, Huta Stalowa Wola)—is particularly active in laboratories focused on innovation and smart city solutions. Some laboratories have dedicated institutional operators, such as the Social Innovation Laboratory in Gdynia (a budgetary unit of the City Hall), CRIS in Rydułtowy (an NGO from Rybnik), ITS Poland in Chełm (an NGO), the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC/PCSS) in Poznań or the Municipal Public Library in Opole.

In the laboratories of the “City for the Young” programme, the focus is on local youth and the municipality, with academic and business partners involved in the implementation of specific activities. In the SmartCity Lab in Chełm, leadership is assumed by a non-governmental organisation, while the business and academic sectors act as key partners. Conversely, CaLiLab in Kraków is operated by the Jagiellonian University. These examples illustrate that, although the organisational frameworks of Urban Labs are broadly similar, their implementation remains flexible and is adapted to local needs and leadership structures.

The prevalence of helix-based collaboration reflects both established good practice in urban innovation and the requirements of funding programmes, particularly EU programmes, which favour multi-sector partnerships. According to the proposed typology, policy/civic labs are the dominant type, accounting for 60% of cases (21). Thematic testbeds and sandboxes account for 30% (10), a relatively high share due to the inclusion of small school labs. Academic Urban Lab zones account for 6% of cases (2), with one additional hybrid case identified.

A prominent strand of activity among Polish Urban Labs involves engaging young people in urban issues and strengthening their participation in local problem-solving. Other laboratories focus on technological innovation in urban contexts, including smart mobility, IoT, AI, e-health, and cybersecurity. Examples include PSNC Future Labs in Poznań and SmartCity Lab in Chełm, both operating as thematic testbeds or sandboxes, as well as UrsynLab in Warsaw and Compact Lab in Pleszew, which are closer to the policy/civic lab model and address issues such as local urban planning and the 15 min city.

Some laboratories also engage more directly with environmental and sustainability-related challenges. For example, the “Smart blue-green campus” developed within CaLiLab in Kraków focuses on biodiversity and sustainable resource management, while GreenLab in Toruń addresses urban greenery and waste management. Although most Urban Labs operate across broader thematic portfolios, many of their activities contribute to sustainable urban transformation through interventions related to mobility, circularity, climate adaptation, resource use, and the overall quality of the urban environment.

A significant proportion of Urban Labs also focus on social innovation and community building by supporting bottom-up initiatives, strengthening civic engagement, and improving quality of life through participatory processes (type: Urban Lab—policy/civic lab). Examples include Kato Science Corner in Katowice, Urban Lab Racibórz, Urban Lab Rzeszów, Śląski Urban Lab in Gliwice, Szarlota LAB in Rydułtowy, SocLab Foundation in Białystok and Urban Lab Mysłowice.

The main activities of Urban Labs include experiments and testing of solutions in urban conditions, meetings, workshops, and training. Prototyping of products and services is often carried out, supported by mini grants. Educational activities, debates, and thematic academies are popular. Many laboratories offer physical spaces for co-working and dialogue, for example “Urban Café” in the “City for the Young” network or UrsynLab. The widespread use of participatory and experimental methods, such as prototyping, testing and awareness-raising, is a key feature of Urban Labs in Poland. The living-lab approach, which emphasises experimentation under real-life conditions and user-centred design, is evident in the activities of CaLiLab in Kraków, PSNC Future Labs in Poznań, Urban Lab Rzeszów, SmartCity Lab in Chełm, Compact Lab in Pleszew, Szarlota LAB in Rydułtowy and School Living Lab. Prototyping and pilots in real urban conditions are often mentioned. Data collection and evaluation methods include social diagnostics, consultations, surveys, observations, and the gathering of ideas from residents. Some laboratories, such as those in Bydgoszcz, Lublin, Zielona Góra, and Szczecin, explicitly refer to outcome monitoring or impact evaluation, which is important for assessing their contribution to sustainable urban development.

4.2. Examples and Characteristics of Urban Living Labs in Poland

Urban Living Labs (ULLs) in Poland operate mainly in large cities and across multiple spatial scales, ranging from individual buildings and residential communities to districts, entire cities, and metropolitan areas. For example, Energa Living Lab in Gdynia (type: Living Lab—energy-focused) covered seven districts of the city and focused on household energy efficiency. The SmartFood project (type: Living Lab—urban food and food-waste reduction) was initially implemented in a single residential block in Łódź and was later extended to the entire Łódź voivodeship and Warsaw. A key initiative in the field of energy and climate was NetZero Emission and Environmentally Sustainable Territories (NEEST) (type: Living Lab—deep retrofit pilot), implemented simultaneously in Kraków, Łódź, Rzeszów, Warsaw, and Wrocław. In each city, representative urban quarters were selected for pilot activities aimed at achieving climate neutrality of buildings through deep thermal modernisation and the implementation of energy-efficiency solutions. OpenAir (type: Living Lab—citizen science and health), by contrast, covered the entire Górnośląsko-Zagłębiowska Metropolia and examined CO₂ and particulate matter concentrations in school classrooms. Most of the identified ULLs are located in leading urban centres, which reflects both the concentration of resources and the greater institutional capacity of large cities. Overall, the scale of ULL activity is flexible, encompassing both micro-level experiments and city- or region-wide interventions.

The analysed ULLs also differ in terms of duration and organisational form. Some were designed as short-term pilots, such as the Katowice Energy Innovation Challenge (KEIC) (type: Living Lab—innovation challenge), which ran from April to June 2022 and focused on energy innovation. Others, including Energa Living Lab (April 2015–January 2018) and OpenAir (2021–2023), also had clearly defined implementation periods. By contrast, Kraków Living Lab (type: Living Lab—research and prototyping), initiated in 2013, remains active in 2025 as a permanent research-prototyping platform. Living NEEST functioned as a 24-month pilot from June 2023 to May 2025. This diversity suggests that ULLs in Poland should not be understood as a single institutional format but rather as a flexible set of experimental arrangements that differ in permanence and institutional embeddedness.

In all analysed cases, collaboration between multiple actors is fundamental and generally follows the quadruple helix model, involving public authorities, businesses, academia, and local communities. Most often, city authorities, companies and technology start-ups, universities and research institutes, residents, and non-governmental organisations participate. Energa Living Lab in Gdynia, for instance, was implemented through cooperation between an energy company, municipal authorities, and around 300 households. More broadly, Polish ULLs draw on mixed funding structures that combine municipal support with national and international grants, although EU research and innovation programmes remain dominant. Energa Living Lab was supported by the LIFE+ instrument and NFOŚiGW, while NEEST (Horizon 2020, approximately EUR 1.5 million) and Łódź SmartFood (Norway Grants, approximately EUR 1.6 million) were financed through foreign grants. Budgets vary considerably, from relatively small initiatives such as OpenAir (about EUR 35,000) to much larger projects such as Warsaw Food Lab (approximately EUR 12 million). Municipalities often contribute their own funds, and some labs, such as those in Gdynia and Rzeszów, have been incorporated into city budgets, which indicates a higher degree of institutionalisation. Private partners also provide in-kind or financial contributions, including technologies and specialised know-how.

The thematic orientations of Polish ULLs are selective rather than comprehensive. One important cluster is clearly related to energy and climate. It includes projects on household energy saving (Energa Living Lab), urban energy innovation (Katowice EIC), and building decarbonisation through deep retrofit (NEEST). These initiatives contribute to reduced energy consumption, lower CO₂ emissions, the testing of smart energy solutions, and improvements in building performance. A second thematic cluster concerns urban food systems and circularity, represented by SmartFood in Łódź, FoodSHIFT in Wrocław, and Warsaw Food Lab. A third cluster covers air quality, health, nature-based solutions, and digitally supported urban experimentation. OpenAir belongs to this group, as does Place Lab Katowice, which operates in the area of nature-based solutions, while projects such as Kraków Living Lab and Wrocław CityLab test IoT- and health-related solutions in real-life settings. This distribution suggests that Polish ULLs are concentrated around a limited number of sustainability domains rather than covering the full spectrum of urban transformation challenges. The identified Urban Living Labs and their main characteristics are summarised in

Table 2. Urban Living Labs in Poland. Projects implemented and active over the past decade.

No.	City and Lab Name. Population (Core City)	Headquarters, Date (Start–End)	Operator (Seat) and Funding	Stakeholders	Type (Primary Domain/Focus)
1	NetZero Emission and Environmentally Sustainable Territories (NEEST) Kraków, Łódź, Rzeszów, Warsaw, Wrocław	Five pilot cities (deep retrofit of quarters) 1 June 2023–31 May 2025	NetZeroCities Consortium/Climate-KIC; funding: Horizon 2020 (≈€1.5 million) + organisational support from cities	Cities (Kraków lead, partners: Łódź, Rzeszów, Warsaw, Wrocław), NCBR, CRS, Think Tank Miasto, NetZeroCities, managers, residents, NGOs, experts	Living Lab (deep retrofit pilot)
2	Warsaw Food Lab Food Trails (with other cities in Europe) c. 1,864,000	Warsaw (entire city), 16 October 2020–15 October 2024 (4 years)	City of Warsaw—Bureau of Economic Development & Bureau of International Cooperation (LL coordination) Funding: Horizon 2020, Food Trails grant no. 101,000,812 (€12.19 million)	77 restaurants (food donations), 77 NGOs cooperating with Food Bank, SOS Food Bank in Warsaw, Residents/refugees (pilot beneficiaries)	Living Lab (urban food, food waste reduction)
3	Kraków—Kraków Living Lab c. 769,000	Various urban zones (traffic, squares, parks, transport) + companies in KPT since 2013 (active in 2025)	Kraków Technology Park; funding: MRPO 2007–2013 (ERDF + regional budget + city budget) + KPT + City of Kraków + EU grants (Interreg, Horizon Europe, EDIH)	KPT, Kraków City Council, municipal units, start-ups/SMEs, residents, AGH, PK, UJ, ENoLL, EU partners	Living Lab (research & prototyping)
4	Wrocław—Wrocław CityLab c. 674,000	Wrocław; started 29 November 2022	Wrocław City Council (SmartCity and Project Management Office) with Wrocław Technology Park and international partners from ICT and academia	City of Wrocław, technology companies (e.g., Tauron, Ericsson, Clear Channel), start-ups, universities, WPT, residents, city services	Urban Living Lab/thematic testbed
5	Wrocław—“Accessible Food Gardens Lab” (FoodSHIFT2030) c. 674,000	Wrocław (metropolitan area), 1 January 2020–31 December 2023	Wrocław City Council, Department of Sustainable Development + Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences (UPWr) Funding: Horizon 2020, grant no. 862,716 (€8.21 million, EU contribution €7.4 million)	Ekorozwoju Foundation, Schools and kindergartens (20+ gardens), Local producers & NGOs, Residents/volunteers	Living Lab (urban food, community gardening)
6	Łódź—SmartFood c. 646,000	Experiment in a residential block in Łódź and the region, 1 September 2021–30 April 2024	CBI Pro-Akademia + PK, APS, NILU, WNRI, BI; funding: Norwegian Funds 2014–2021 + NCBiR (€1.605 million)	Residents of the block, scientists (PL/NOR), NCBiR, local government authorities, technology companies	Living Lab (urban food)
7	Gdańsk—Urban Living Lab Old Shipyard (ULL Gdańsk)/ENACT 15 mC c. 470,000	Research and implementation project carried out in the post-shipyard area “Młode Miasto/Old Shipyard” in Gdańsk (Poland). Consortium implementation period: 1 December 2023–30 November 2026	Gdańsk University of Technology (Gdańsk). Funding: Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) Call 2022, 15-Minute City pathway, co-funded by national agencies (e.g., NCN—PL, UKRI/ESRC—UK, RCN—NO, MCIN—ES)	City of Gdańsk; Stocznia Cesarska Development Sp. z o.o.; The Baltic Sea Cultural Centre in Gdańsk; owners of post-shipyard land; residents and local NGOs; international ENACT partners (e.g., NTNU, Oxford Brookes University, Universitat Politècnica de València)	Living Lab (mobility-focused)
8	Katowice—Energy Innovation Challenge (KEIC) c. 283,000	Katowice; competition and accelerator, 14 April 2022–30 June 2022	UN-Habitat + Katowice City Council; funding: UN-Habitat + city budget (prizes + acceleration support)	UN-Habitat, Katowice City Council, Rawa.Ink, WUF11, global start-ups	Living Lab (innovation challenge)
9	Katowice and GZM—OpenAir: healthy air in the classroom c. 283,000 c. 2.1 mil.	Katowice + 41 GZM municipalities; 2021–2023	Napraw Sobie Miasto Foundation + GZM; funding: Active Citizens (EEA, €35,076)	Napraw Sobie Miasto Foundation, GZM, students, teachers, parents, innovators, PGZM	Living Lab (citizen science & health)
10	Katowice—Place Lab (UPSURGE project) c. 283,000	Katowice 2021–2026	Operator: Katowice City Council/Municipal Greenery Department; Scientific Partner: IETU; Funding: EU Horizon 2020, grant 101,003,818 (UPSURGE)—100%, ≈€502,375 for Katowice	IETU, University of Silesia, Dąb Culture Centre, GCM Ochojec Hospital, residents, local businesses (quintuple helix model)	Urban Living Lab/Place Lab (Nature-Based Solutions)
11	Gdynia—Energa Living Lab c. 244,000	7 districts (Chwarzno, Redłowo, Wielki Kack, Dąbrowa, Witomino, Śródmieście, Karwiny) April 2015–January 2018	Enspirion (Energa Group)/Energa Group; funding: European Commission LIFE+ + NFOŚiGW (≈1.36 million)	Enspirion, Energa Group, 300 households, City of Gdynia, EC LIFE+, NFOŚiGW	Living Lab (energy-focused)

Validation links for this table are provided in Appendix A, Table A2.

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Social participation is an equally important dimension of these initiatives. Residents are engaged through co-design workshops, consultations, usability tests, and educational activities, which support both the acceptance of proposed solutions and the development of new social practices. Training and awareness-raising initiatives are also organised, for example, educational sessions for students on energy conservation and ecological awareness. Idea marathons, such as Climathon, and innovation competitions linked to accelerators further stimulate experimentation in the areas of green energy, resource efficiency, and urban sustainability more broadly. In this sense, Polish ULLs function not only as testing environments for technical solutions, but also as platforms for social learning, behavioural change, and civic engagement.

The outcomes of Polish ULLs include implemented innovations, measurable environmental and energy effects, behavioural change, and policy influence. These projects have produced measurable effects. For example, Energa Living Lab reduced electricity consumption by 4%, equivalent to approximately 104 MWh, and lowered CO₂ emissions by 124 tonnes. Participants in the energy lab also sustained energy-saving behaviours, indicating a longer-term behavioural effect. NEEST recommendations are informing thermal modernisation programmes, while OpenAir has issued guidance for schools on ventilation and indoor microclimate, with relevance for building performance and environmental quality. Some labs, such as Kraków Living Lab, have become permanent platforms, while Gdynia and Rzeszów have incorporated similar initiatives into municipal strategies and budgets. Lab results have also shaped public policies: Warsaw included food waste in its strategy, and Wrocław signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact.

Several cases also demonstrate that Polish ULLs extend beyond narrowly defined energy experimentation. Place Lab Katowice, implemented within the international UPSURGE project, led in 2024—after a series of meetings with residents—to the construction of four green stops and the greening of a section of the Market Square, creating five micro-oases aimed at reducing the urban heat island effect [48]. The new green stops were equipped with specialised environmental sensors, integrated with passenger information boards and connected to the city’s electricity and digital infrastructure. These sensors continuously monitor temperature, humidity, pollutant concentrations, and noise levels, while an additional set of 14 mobile sensors maps environmental conditions across the city in real time. Another example is Urban Living Lab Gdańsk, led by Gdańsk University of Technology, which pilots the transformation of the historic shipyard area into a 15 min city district. Working with residents, cultural institutions, and landowners, the lab co-creates augmented-reality planning tools and participatory methods in order to preserve local identity while activating public spaces through art, culture, and sustainable mobility. It also develops a transferable toolbox of planning instruments and a transition pathway to guide heritage-aware, people-centred regeneration.

Taken together, these examples show that Polish ULLs contribute to sustainable urban transformation in a thematically selective but institutionally significant way. Their role lies not only in testing technical solutions, especially in the fields of energy and buildings, but also in generating participation, local learning, cross-sector collaboration, and policy-relevant knowledge. At the same time, the thematic concentration of many initiatives around energy, food systems, environmental monitoring, and selected digital and health-related applications indicates that the ULL landscape in Poland remains at an early and still uneven stage of development.

5. Discussion

5.1. Key Findings from the Activities of Polish Urban Labs: Trends and Challenges

The analysis of Polish ULs suggests the emergence of a rapidly evolving urban innovation ecosystem that combines increasing standardisation with local variation. Anchored in the “City for the Young” programme, this ecosystem has aligned several features of UL design, particularly the focus on youth engagement, funding channels, and modes of operation. At the same time, ULs in Poland benefit from a “latecomer advantage”, drawing on lessons from earlier European and global initiatives [6,7]. Despite their diversity, most initiatives share a common philosophy based on participatory co-creation, experimentation, and prototyping in real-world settings.

An important cross-cutting issue is financial sustainability. Polish ULs remain heavily reliant on EU funding and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism (Norway Grants), reflecting a strategic use of external resources to build urban innovation capacity. However, this dependence on grant funding creates a potential “funding cliff” once initial support comes to an end [14]. Sustained operation will therefore require more diversified and predictable revenue streams, as well as stronger institutional embedding—for example, through integration into municipal structures, as in Rzeszów—in order to reduce exposure to time-limited project cycles and stabilise day-to-day operations.

The Polish cases suggest two main models of Urban Lab implementation: a centralised model and a bottom-up (organic) model.

Centralised model: This model is based on initiatives launched by public institutions, most often municipal offices or ministries, which plan, finance, and coordinate the operation of the laboratory. Examples include ULs created within centrally funded pilot programmes, such as the nationwide “Urban Lab—City for the Young” initiative. This model is characterised by a strong dependence on national or EU funds, close links to local development strategies, and a formal organisational structure. It typically includes permanent premises (e.g., an Urban Café), regularly implemented activities, and standardised reporting and evaluation procedures.

Bottom-up (organic) model: This model emerges from local needs and initiatives and is created by civil society groups, NGOs, universities, urban activists, or multi-sector partnerships. It operates in a more flexible and often experimental manner, adapting to local conditions and relying on more diverse, though often fragmented, funding sources. Examples include CaLiLab in Kraków (run by the Jagiellonian University), SocLab in Białystok (an NGO initiative), and GreenLab in Toruń. In this model, laboratories often do not have a separate physical space, but instead function as networks of thematic activities, projects, and events, with a strong emphasis on prototyping, social experimentation, and community engagement.

The coexistence of these two models reflects two complementary development paths for Urban Labs in Poland. Together, they support a diversification of operational forms, enable better adaptation to local realities, and allow for the testing of both complex, multi-year public projects and short-term social interventions.

A clear orientation towards youth engagement and civic participation is a distinctive feature of the Polish UL landscape, which remains strongly socially oriented [13]. The consistent creation of dedicated physical spaces—such as Urban Cafés, workshop rooms, and coworking areas—underlines the importance of permanent centres for supporting dialogue and experimentation. The emphasis on prototyping and pilot projects suggests a focus on the early stages of urban innovation development [49]. The outcomes of these initiatives often include community engagement, network building, and the generation of locally embedded ideas and initiatives.

5.1.1. Potential for Sustainable Urban Transformation

Although many ULs focus on broader aspects of urban development rather than on narrowly defined sectoral interventions, their activities have clear relevance for sustainable urban transformation. Awareness-raising initiatives, civic education, co-creation workshops, and experimentation with locally adapted solutions help to build social capacity for change and support the emergence of more participatory and resilient forms of urban governance. In some cases, these activities also intersect with climate- and energy-related issues, for example, through debates on energy efficiency, ecological awareness, or community involvement in sustainability-oriented projects. From both scientific and strategic perspectives, there is a clear need for long-term evaluation of the actual effectiveness of ULs in Poland, including their environmental, social, and institutional impacts. The key challenge is to convert initial momentum into durable and measurable urban change. This, in turn, requires evaluation frameworks that go beyond basic operational indicators and capture the broader contribution of ULs to sustainable urban development.

5.1.2. Policy Recommendations

Strong involvement of municipal authorities as leaders and funders remains a key success factor, as it provides institutional legitimacy and increases the likelihood that experimental activities will become embedded in local governance structures. At the same time, national coordination and inter-city knowledge exchange—supported by IRMiR and MFiPR under the “City for the Young” programme—facilitate the circulation of good practices and strengthen the long-term development of the Urban Lab model in Poland. Future policy should therefore focus not only on financing pilot initiatives, but also on ensuring their continuity, evaluation, and adaptation to different local contexts, including smaller and less institutionally resourced cities.

5.1.3. Polish ULs and ULLs in a European Comparative Perspective

The Polish urban lab landscape can be better understood when compared with more established initiatives in Western and Northern Europe. In the Netherlands, Scholl and Kemp [3] documented how city labs in Maastricht functioned as vehicles for innovation in urban planning, emphasising structured experimentation, iterative learning, and multi-actor co-creation. Similarly, Scholl and De Kraker [50] showed that Dutch city labs are not only spaces for experimentation, but also mechanisms for reflexive urban governance; at the same time, they face difficulties in scaling outcomes beyond the immediate local context. This challenge strongly resonates with the Polish case, where many ULs and ULLs also generate locally valuable initiatives but still struggle to secure longer-term institutional uptake and broader policy transfer.

In Scandinavia, the comparison points more clearly to differences in institutional embedding. Juujärvi and Pesso [28] showed that Finnish urban living labs in Espoo relied on strong enabler-driven governance by municipalities, combined with university-led research strategies and relatively stable organisational support. Swedish ULLs, as analysed by Voytenko et al. [23] and in the broader European overview by Marvin et al. [4], likewise tend to be more closely integrated with municipal sustainability agendas and to benefit from longer funding horizons. Compared with these examples, Polish ULs and ULLs appear more fragmented and more dependent on short-term, project-based funding, which weakens continuity, reduces institutional durability, and makes it more difficult to move from experimentation to sustained implementation.

At the same time, the comparison reveals important commonalities across European contexts. In Poland, as elsewhere in Europe, urban labs rely on cross-sector collaboration, frequently involve universities as knowledge brokers, and face tensions between local embeddedness and wider systemic impact [4,28,50]. Dependence on external, often EU-based funding and the challenge of moving from pilot projects to scaled implementation also remain shared concerns [4,51]. The Polish case therefore does not represent a separate model, but rather a less consolidated variant of a broader European pattern. Its specificity lies in the combination of strong external funding dependence, still limited institutional stabilisation, and the rapid recent expansion of labs within a post-socialist urban context. Poland’s latecomer position, however, also offers certain advantages, including the possibility of learning from more established European models and adapting them to specific institutional and governance conditions.

5.2. Key Findings from the Activities of Polish Urban Labs and Urban Living Labs: Trends and Challenges

Polish ULs and ULLs are projects with a clear orientation towards solving specific urban problems through experimentation and testing in real-life conditions. They are characterised by the involvement of end users (residents, pupils, households) and the participation of diverse stakeholders from the public, private, and academic sectors. Funding is largely sourced from external programmes, particularly EU and Norwegian funds. These projects often target technological and social innovations, aiming to achieve measurable impacts in areas such as energy efficiency, environmental quality, and sustainable food systems [23].

A recurring trend is a pragmatic approach to urban innovation, focused on creating and validating solutions in practice. An important feature is the strong link to specific environmental and social challenges, such as emission reduction, urban food growing, and air quality. Many projects use advanced technologies in combination with participatory methods (gamification, citizen science), which may increase engagement and social awareness of issues such as energy efficiency.

Several challenges and future development directions can also be identified. As with many Urban Labs, a key challenge is the short-term nature of ULL projects. Many of them have a defined duration, which raises questions about the sustainability of the solutions developed and their scaling after the end of project funding (cf. [34]). The challenge remains the transition from successful pilots to large-scale implementation at the city or country level, although projects such as NEEST aim to create universal models not only at the national level. Notably, three Polish labs have been accredited and actively participate in the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL): Kraków Living Lab (Kraków Technology Park), Campus Living Lab at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (UL), and PSNC Future Labs in Poznań (Scientific and Research Centre).

These initiatives are a valuable tool for testing and implementing urban innovations in real-life conditions, with active community participation. To date, their activities show potential for addressing specific challenges, from energy efficiency to air quality and sustainable food. For their further development, it will be important to ensure research reproducibility and continuity, to effectively scale the solutions developed, and to rigorously assess their impact—so that their full potential can be realised in building more innovative and resilient cities, including cities advancing newer concepts such as regenerative urbanism [52]. Given the typical scale of ULLs in Poland, it should also be noted that in a rapidly developing country of 38 million, where growth is concentrated in cities and metropolitan areas in line with the polarisation–diffusion model, the number of such initiatives remains small. Labs can increase the innovativeness of Polish cities and strengthen their collaborative capacity. Katowice’s KEIC has shown that a municipality can cooperate effectively with a UN agency. Lessons from labs in Kraków and Gdynia are being shared through national networks, while participation in Horizon Europe and ENoLL projects promotes Polish solutions abroad.

These findings should also be interpreted in the broader context of the still limited scale of urban experimentation in Poland and the country’s overall innovation performance. In this broader context, it is worth noting that Poland remains in the group of “Emerging Innovators”: in 2024, its score was 65.9% of the EU average (threshold <70%). Although since 2017 it has improved its index by about 28 percentage points—the fastest in the EU—it still lags clearly behind leaders such as Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, which exceed 125% [53,54]. In the Global Innovation Index 2023, Poland ranks 41st worldwide (26th in Europe) and only 50th by innovation expenditure, indicating a resource deficit relative to the results achieved [55]. This “resource gap” is also reflected in finance: Poland’s R&D intensity—public and business sector expenditure—was 1.44% of GDP in 2021, compared with 2.22% in the EU in 2023 and over 3% in the most innovative countries [56]. Despite the growing number of start-ups, Poland remains moderately innovative and needs increased investment and stronger knowledge transfer to avoid the middle-income trap.

This interpretation is also consistent with earlier findings from the Polish literature on urban labs. Małgorzata Pięta Kanurska, analysing Polish ULs and ULLs based on other publications, identified two important areas of innovation [57]:

Social innovations: creating diverse initiatives such as urban revitalisation, participatory budgeting, social innovation and design centres, and neighbourhood centre networks; and providing tools for designing and implementing social innovations that integrate the resources of residents, municipal institutions, and organisations.

Technological innovations: supporting cooperation between technology parks, technology transfer centres, enterprises, start-ups, universities, and research institutions to stimulate innovation and implement city innovation policy; and introducing modern technological solutions that improve residents’ quality of life.

A recent study [58] shows that Urban Labs in Poland contribute significantly to SDG implementation, with varying intensity across specific goals. The largest contribution is for SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), averaging 22%, with a maximum of 33% in the Urban Lab Gdynia and Mysłowice Lab. High engagement is also recorded for SDG 4 (Quality Education), averaging 16%, with a maximum of 19% in Campus Lab, and for SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), averaging 20%, with a maximum of 34% in Smart City Chełm. Other areas, such as SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being; 4% on average) and SDG 13 (Climate Action; 3% on average), have smaller shares. Goals such as SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 1 (No Poverty) have minimal shares (1% or less). Overall, the contribution of Urban Labs to SDG implementation ranges from 0% to 42%, with a clear emphasis on social and urban innovations.

5.3. Directions for Future Research and the Sequencing of Urban Labs and Urban Living Labs

As a nationwide overview, this study opens the way for more in-depth analyses of Urban Labs (ULs) and Urban Living Labs (ULLs) in Poland. Future research should move beyond process-oriented descriptions and examine the long-term environmental, social, and institutional impacts of these initiatives. In particular, comparative case studies across different organisational and funding models could help identify context-specific success factors and better explain how participation, experimentation, and policy learning operate in different urban settings.

The findings also suggest that ULs and ULLs play distinct but complementary roles. ULs tend to frame urban problems, convene stakeholders, and support policy development, whereas ULLs are more strongly oriented towards real-world experimentation, prototyping, and validation. Together, they can be understood as part of a sequenced process linking co-creation, testing, and scaling within sustainable urban transformation. In Poland, however, realising this complementarity will require more stable multi-year funding and stronger impact-evaluation frameworks capable of moving beyond one-off pilot projects.

6. Conclusions

This study provides the first nationwide overview of Urban Labs and Urban Living Labs in Poland. In total, 34 ULs and 15 ULLs were identified, with around 60% launched after 2023, indicating a dynamic phase of expansion. At the same time, their geographical distribution reveals a clear spatial imbalance, as more than 80% are located in voivodeship capitals and metropolitan areas. This suggests that the Urban Lab model has already gained significant traction in major urban centres, while its diffusion to smaller cities remains limited.

The study also shows that Polish ULs and ULLs are organisationally diverse. ULs were grouped into four main types, while the broader landscape reveals two main development paths: a centralised model linked to public administration and large externally funded programmes, and a decentralised model emerging from civic initiatives, NGOs, and universities. Despite these differences, the analysed initiatives share a common orientation towards co-creation, stakeholder engagement, participatory design, and experimentation in real-life settings.

At the same time, the long-term durability of these initiatives remains uncertain. Most depend heavily on time-limited external funding, which weakens institutional stability and limits continuity beyond individual project cycles. For this reason, the further development of ULs and ULLs in Poland will require stronger institutional embedding, more stable multi-year financing, and more systematic frameworks for impact evaluation.

Overall, Polish ULs and ULLs remain at an early stage of development. While the evidence from this inventory is primarily descriptive, the identified patterns suggest that these initiatives have the potential to contribute to more participatory and experimental forms of urban governance. Their value lies not only in testing new solutions, but also in strengthening participation, cross-sector collaboration, local learning, and cities’ capacity to respond experimentally to complex urban challenges. In a broader post-socialist Central and Eastern European context, the Polish case appears to be one of the more developed and systematically documented examples of Urban Lab implementation. It may therefore serve as a useful reference point for other countries in the region seeking to strengthen experimental approaches to sustainable urban transformation.

6.1. Limitations

This study has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, it relies exclusively on publicly available secondary data obtained through desk research, without qualitative validation through interviews with lab coordinators or stakeholders. This limits the depth of insight into internal dynamics, collaborative practices, and real-world impacts of the analysed initiatives. Second, the inventory reflects a snapshot of the state of ULs and ULLs as of July 2025; given the dynamic nature of these initiatives, some may have since been discontinued, restructured, or newly established. Third, no systematic impact assessment was conducted, meaning that the study describes what labs do rather than measuring what they achieve. Fourth, there is a risk of incomplete identification of cases, particularly those without a strong online presence or operating under less recognisable names.

6.2. Recommendations for Future Research

Future research should address the limitations identified above by pursuing several complementary directions. First, longitudinal tracking of lab development would provide insights into the sustainability, evolution, and institutional trajectories of ULs and ULLs over time. Second, qualitative case-study research, including interviews with lab coordinators, municipal officials, and participating stakeholders, would deepen understanding of governance mechanisms, learning processes, and the conditions under which labs succeed or fail. Third, comparative studies across Central and Eastern European countries would help situate the Polish experience within a broader regional context and identify transferable lessons. Fourth, the development of standardised evaluation frameworks for assessing the environmental, social, and institutional impacts of urban labs would support evidence-based policy-making and improve accountability.