In the beginning of March 2022, the AMS Academy for professional education is organizing the Urban Living Lab Winter school. The week is filled with inspiring lectures, a lot of teamwork, rapid exercises and a toolbox filled with practical tools to work with in your own practice.
“This is an intense but fun week where professionals and researchers collectively learn about Urban Living Labs and set up a plan of approach for real-life case. The participants work in teams on real-life cases and explore all the essential steps to set up an Urban Living Lab.”
What you will get
You will learn to understand what a Living Lab is and when it can be of added value to start one. You’ll also gain hands-on knowledge on what is needed to have a successful start, and how to deal with issues such as stakeholder involvement and citizen empowerment.
This winter school will challenge you to work with a new mindset, build a new network of professionals and academia. It gives you the opportunity to be a part of the next steps towards the future of one of Amsterdam’s key projects.
During this winter school, we will help you solve the real-world challenge you bring with your team.
“You will be challenged to step out of your comfort zone and step into the world of innovation processes, co creation, multi-stakeholder visioning and feel empowered by this experience to implement in your own practice.”
Leendert Verhoef
Former Urban Living Lab Program Developer at AMS Institute
The cases of the AMS Winter School 2022
Case-based learning
During the week, you will be working on a real case together with your multidisciplinary team. Each team will work on their own real-world case. Your team will have the opportunity to meet and interview stakeholders and finally present your Living Lab design to a real case-owner.
Case 1 | LIFE project, Local Inclusive Future Energy, Zuidoost
ArenAPoort, a borough in Amsterdam Southeast, like the rest of the city, aims to be energy neutral by 2040. The existing energy infrastructure will not be able to meet this challenge. To achieve this, we need a drastic change and smart energy systems that will include energy consumers and locally produced & stored energy sources. This energy transition will introduce innovative technologies and smart ways to organize it, which need to be adapted to the way we live, work, and relax together. Our goal is to develop the tools for a local, sustainable energy system that ensures sharing of the benefits in an inclusive and fairway among the ArenAPoort area and its adjacent residential areas.
The mission of the LIFE ArenAPoort project requires the cooperation of many different parties and conscientious ways to engage with a large and diverse group of stakeholders. In the ArenAPoort Living Lab (hosted by the Zuidoost Energielab), we intend to use, develop and test different methods for stakeholder engagement. To learn, improve and accelerate the development of the smart city energy platform that should facilitate peer-to-peer energy exchange. The LIFE platform will be connected to a Digital Twin that simulates the local network with interconnected technical energy assets. This simulation helps us understand what works and how to scale and implement these innovations in Amsterdam Zuidoost and other metropolitan environments. The LIFE project will contain a ULL that is expected to be the ecosystem that should stimulate open innovation, public-private-people partnerships, and collaborative projects/experiments. It must be characterized by its user-centered, systematic user co-creation approach, integrating research and innovation processes in a real-life use context.More information >>
Case 2 | Circular Solar Panels to fight Energy Poverty, Zuidoost
This challenge is about bringing the energy transition within the safe and just space for humanity, as defined by the doughnut model of planetary boundaries and social boundaries. The production of solar panels comes with lots of CO2 emissions and pollution overseas. It also relies on non-renewable raw materials that are becoming scarce and monopolized at high speed. Most discarded panels can still generate energy for years to come. They are mainly being discarded for economic reasons, not because they’ve reached their technical end-of-life. For this reason, we want to extend the usage phase of solar panels by giving discarded panels a second life in Amsterdam Southeast. With this, we want to create opportunities for a circular energy transition and at the same time contribute to fighting energy poverty and creating sustainable employment.
We will work with partners in the quadruple helix (government, industry, academic institution, and citizens) to realize process innovation and labor market innovation in the solar-PV supply chain. Together with them, we want to set up circular field labs in Amsterdam Southeast to gain experience using second-hand panels for specific target groups and conduct practical research into scaling up possibilities for circular solar panels. For sustainable employment, we want the reuse of solar panels to be linked to a training program for people with a distance to the labor market. The option to buy second-hand solar systems at a reduced price will make the switch to solar energy cheaper and more accessible for more Dutch families.More information >>
Info & Registration
Preparation
Before the week starts you will receive some preparatory work. This includes reading literature, watching knowledge clips and preparing some assignments. In total this will add up to approximately one day of work. For this Winter School no additional prior knowledge is required apart from affinity with contemporary urban challenges and solutions.
During the week
In the week of March 7 - 11 you can expect a full-time program. This means that we expect you to be able to attend online from Monday to Friday from 9:30-17:00. Every day you will attend inspirational lectures, participate in workshops, get personal coaching and work with your group on your case. All classes, materials and discussions will be in English.
Although the training is online with participants from all the world, not all exercises will be behind your screen. By participating you will be connected to the alumni network and a community of Living Lab practitioners.
Requirements for participation
As a participant,
- you are a professional/researcher with minimal five years of experience in the field of urban challenges;
- or you are involved as a PhD or Postdoc in urban challenged research projects
- you identify with themes like urban circularity, mobility, energy, food systems, climate resilience and digitization;
- you strive for sustainable, innovative and just solutions;
- you are looking for different ways to tackle urban challenges;
- you are inclined to learn, collaborate and co-create from different perspectives
Costs
PhD student: € 500,-
Senior researcher € 900,-
Professional € 2000,-
AMS Partners or teams over 5 persons please contact Femke Haccou (femke.haccou@ams-institute.org) for a special offer.
Registration is now open!
Are you interested in participating in this edition of the Winter School? Please tell us who you are and why you are interested. Register via this link>>.
We will ask you to send us your CV and a motivation letter in the form. A diverse and motivated cohort of 15 – 20 people will be selected to make part of the AMS Academy’s Urban Living Lab Winter School 2022. Registration is open until 21st of February.