From Urban Experimentation to Transformation: Insights from ULALABS Third Multiplier event in Stavanger
- kasiatusiewicz
- 2 days ago
- 4 min de lectura
How can cities move beyond isolated pilot projects and create long-term urban transformation? This question guided the ULALABS Third Multiplier event “From Urban Experimentation to Transformation — Insights from ULALABS”, held on 6 May in Stavanger, organised by the University of Stavanger (UiS) and part of the Nordic Edge Expo events in Stavanger, 5-6 of May.
The hybrid session brought together researchers, municipalities, innovation organisations and local stakeholders to exchange experiences on urban experimentation, participation and collaborative governance across European cities.
Opening the event, Todor Kesarovski (University of Stavanger) introduced the ULALABS framework and the project’s ambition to build a distributed European “Lab of Labs” model connecting learning communities and experimentation spaces across regional ecosystems. He highlighted the importance of understanding not only how pilots generate knowledge, but also how experiences can be adapted and shared between different local contexts.
Javier Martínez (University of Twente) presented the ULALABS Learning Toolkits (access and explore here), practical resources designed to support challenge-based learning and experimentation processes in the pilots implementation. Their presentation explored collaborative methodologies combining AI-supported co-design, virtual reality and the “Responsible Futuring” approach, highlighting the importance of integrating inclusion, empathy and multiple perspectives into urban innovation processes. These toolkits aim not only to share knowledge generated, but also to create exchange and reflection between cities, practitioners and communities.
The event highlighted a central question for the project: how can experimentation become a long-term driver of systemic urban transformation rather than remaining isolated pilot projects?
Speakers’ presentations
To answer this question, the session combined methodological reflections with practical examples from organisations – ULALABS stakeholders- working with experimentation in real urban environments.
Ulrika Johansson (Linköping Science Park) shared the inspiring experience of the Swedish city’s “testbed voucher” model, which enables SMEs to test climate-oriented solutions together with municipalities and municipal companies in real urban environments. She emphasised that one of the key values of the initiative is helping companies access real urban environments and connect with the right public actors. She also stressed that the real value of experimentation often lies not only in funding, but in trust-building, matchmaking, and opening institutional doors for collaboration. Her presentation included examples such as AI-supported parking analysis using drone imagery and renewable energy solutions tested in municipal water infrastructure.
The examples demonstrated how experimentation can accelerate both innovation and learning. See more in the presentation from the event.
Odd Vinje (Nordic Edge, Stavanger) reflected on the relationship between experimentation, governance and participation through experiences developed in Stavanger. Drawing from agile pilot projects and co-creation public participation forums (see here for more details), he stressed the importance of connecting strategic planning with operational practice inside municipalities. He argued that urban transformation requires breaking down silos between departments, citizens, academia and private actors. By showing the examples from Stavanger from NEB-STAR project, his intervention focused on trust-building, long-term collaboration and creating spaces where citizens, public servants and organisations can work together continuously rather than through fragmented initiatives. Get to know more in Odd’s presentation below.
Learning outcomes and key reflections
Before moving to the the moderated debate, participants engaged in an interactive exercise to gather public views on key ideas, principles, and enabling conditions for urban experimentation:
The discussion further explored recurring challenges in urban experimentation across European cities, including organisational silos, how to avoid “pilot fatigue”, how to ensure participation processes genuinely influence decision-making, political continuity and the challenges of transforming successful pilots into long-term practices.
Participants stressed that experimentation should not only be understood as a way to test technologies, but also as a process for collective learning, relationship-building and institutional change.Testbeds and pilots were framed not as isolated projects, but as learning infrastructures that help cities navigate uncertainty, complexity and rapid societal transitions.
Several key themes emerged throughout the session:
experimentation as a way to reduce risk while enabling innovation;
the importance of inclusive and cross-sector collaboration;
trust and long-term relationships as critical infrastructure for transformation;
the need to connect strategic ambitions with operational realities;
the need for stronger feedback loops between experimentation, policy-making and daily practice
and the importance of adapting methods to local contexts rather than simply replicating solutions.
The event concluded with a shared reflection that urban transformation is not driven by isolated technologies or projects alone, but by people, relationships, and collective learning processes that help cities continuously adapt and evolve.
Shared examples and discussion demonstrated how urban experimentation can support more collaborative, inclusive and sustainable approaches to urban transformation.
Publications and project framework
To further explore the topics discussed during the session, we invite you to consult the Mutual Learning Communities Roadmap — available in several languages and focused on how learning communities can support knowledge exchange and collaboration across ecosystems — together with The Emerging Lab of Labs, which presents practices and experiences from European urban experimentation spaces, among the others including Linköping Science Park, Ebbepark, Nordic Edge, Pedersgata living lab.
You can consult the presentations from the event here.
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