ULALABS Final Multiplier Event
On 21 October 2026, the ULALABS Final Multiplier Event brought together project partners, local stakeholders, researchers, public administrations and representatives of urban experimentation initiatives at CircuLab, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Held as part of UAB Innovation Week 2026 and the Barcelona 2026 UNESCO-UIA World Capital of Architecture programme, the event provided an opportunity to share the results and lessons emerging from three years of collaboration across Barcelona, Enschede, Linköping and Stavanger.
It was especially meaningful to host the event at UAB Open Labs CircuLab, a space that has been part of the ULALABS local pilot and has hosted co-creation, learning and experimentation activities throughout the project. It offered a fitting setting in which to reflect on the project’s journey and discuss how experimentation can contribute to collaborative learning and sustainable urban transformation.
Agenda
09:45 | Arrival
10:00 | Institutional welcome, Rosa María Sebastián Pérez, Vice-Rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
10:10 | Main results and lessons from ULALABS, Konstantinos Kourkoutas, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
10:25 | Outcomes from the ULALABS pilot activities
· Tina Neset, Linköping University, Cross-case Learning Pilot on transforming campuses and urban spaces into experimentation arenas
· Veronica Junjan, University of Twente, Cross-case Learning Pilot on challenge-based processes at the city level
· Mafalda Madureira, University of Twente, Distributed Learning Pilot on integrating emerging technologies and collaborative methodologies to design inclusive and sustainable urban spaces
10:45 | The ULALABS Learning Toolkits, Kristiane Marie Lindland, University of Stavanger
10:55 | Learning in Living Labs and Experimentation Spaces: A Social Pedagogy Interpretation of the ULALABS Experience, Carme Rovira, UAB
11:00 | Coffee break
11:30 | Roundtable: Urban Experimentation Spaces: Testbeds, Sandboxes and Urban Labs for Inclusive Urban Experimentation
· Nàdia Tarifa Mateo, Campus d’innovación Social i Educativa, Palau-Solità i Plegamans (Spain)
· Sara Malmgren, Ebbepark Testbed (Sweden)
· Marta Esplugues, Barcelona Innova (Spain)
· Mafalda Madureira, DesignLab, University of Twente (the Netherlands)
· Todor Kesarovski, University of Stavanger (Norway)
· Veronica Junjan, ChallengeLab Enschede, University of Twente (the Netherlands)
Moderated by: Konstantinos Kourkoutas, UAB Campus Living Lab and the Strategic Research Community on Smart and Sustainable Cities.
12:50 | Closing remarks, Mireia Galí, ECIU Coordinator at UAB
13:00 | Lunch & networking
The event opened with a welcome from Rosa María Sebastián Pérez, UAB Vice-Rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship, who reflected on the role of universities in connecting knowledge with real-world challenges and generating meaningful impact. She highlighted UAB’s ecosystem for experimentation and knowledge transfer, including the UAB Campus Living Lab, UAB Open Labs and Parc de Recerca UAB, and situated ULALABS within the wider ECIU University framework for collaboration and learning across European contexts.
During the first part of the event, Konstantinos Kourkoutas, ULALABS Coordinator at UAB, presented the project journey and the vision of ULALABS as a distributed “Lab of Labs.” This was followed by presentations of the pilot outcomes by Tina Neset from Linköping University, Veronica Junjan and Mafalda Madureira from the University of Twente. Kristiane Marie Lindland from the University of Stavanger then introduced the ULALABS Learning Toolkits, while Carme Rovira from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona offered a social pedagogy interpretation of learning in Living Labs and other experimentation spaces.
The pilots combined cross-case learning, enabling partners to learn from one another’s experiences, with distributed learning, exploring a shared challenge through experimentation in different locations and collective reflection.
The cross-case learning pilots explored two related areas: how university campuses and urban spaces can become real-world experimentation arenas, and how challenge-based processes can bring universities, municipalities and other societal actors together around shared urban challenges. The pilots showed that successful experimentation depends on suitable places, collaboration between people, clear governance and mechanisms for translating local learning into other contexts. They also highlighted that transformation and learning are highly context-dependent, requiring sustained institutional commitment, dedicated resources and the flexibility to adapt to changing priorities and circumstances.
The distributed learning pilot explored how emerging technologies and collaborative methodologies can support the design of inclusive and sustainable urban spaces across Barcelona, Stavanger, Linköping and Enschede. Partners combined tools such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, emotional mapping and the Urban Belonging App with campus walks, co-creation workshops and collective reflection. The experiences demonstrated that technology can help participants visualise and discuss different possibilities, but that place-based experience, local knowledge and meaningful participation remain essential. As highlighted by the speakers, above all, co-creation creates ownership.
The ULALABS Learning Toolkits translate these experiences into practical and accessible resources that can be adapted to other projects, courses and urban contexts. Combining learning outcomes, methods, case studies, videos and supporting materials, the toolkits explain not only what the different approaches involve, but also how they can be applied in practice, helping the learning generated through ULALABS beyond the project and the participating universities.
You can explore all the ULALABS Learning Toolkits here: https://www.ulalabs.eu/learningtoolkits
Finally, first part of the event concluded with a social pedagogy interpretation of the ULALABS learning experience, and Carme Rovira invited participants to consider whether learning in Living Labs is left implicit or made visible and intentional, that is explicit.
“Learning begins when information becomes a question, thereby generating an explicit need to find an answer.”
From this perspective, learning in Living Labs and other experimentation spaces is strengthened by five interconnected elements: meaningful questions and shared challenges; quality relationships among diverse actors; inclusion and a plurality of voices; varied methodologies that enable different forms of participation; and lasting support structures that allow learning to be sustained and adapted over time.
Roundtable: From experimentation to collective impact
The roundtable broadened the conversation by bringing together representatives of different urban experimentation spaces and initiatives and stakeholders: Nàdia Tarifa Mateo representing Palau-Solità i Plegamans municipality and Campus d’Innovació Social i Educativa, Sara Malmgren from the Ebbepark Testbed (Linköping), Marta Esplugues from Barcelona Innova, Mafalda Madureira, DesignLab Fellow at the University of Twente, Todor Kesarovski from the University of Stavanger, and Veronica Junjan representing the experience of ChallengeLAB Enschede. The discussion was moderated by Konstantinos Kourkoutas, ULALABS Coordinator, UAB Campus Living Lab and the Strategic Research Community on Smart and Sustainable Cities.
The discussion explored how universities, public administrations, businesses, civil society and local communities can connect around shared urban challenges, and what is needed for experimental projects to generate learning and longer-term transformation.
Several common messages emerged. Meaningful experimentation requires more than innovative ideas or new technologies. It needs trust, time, courage, accessible knowledge and lasting relationships. Participants emphasised the importance of involving communities from the beginning, making expectations and assumptions explicit, valuing different forms of knowledge and creating opportunities to do things together, rather than simply exchanging final results.
The conversation also highlighted that impact is not always immediate or easily measurable. It can be found in new relationships, knowledge moving between organisations, changes in institutional practices, and the capacity of one experiment to inspire the next initiative.
As one colleague reminded us:
“You need time to build relationships, to allow knowledge to grow and be shared, and to allow experiences to inspire new ideas.”
In her closing remarks, Mireia Galí, ECIU University Coordinator at UAB, described this collaborative landscape as a “puzzle of many pieces” and an “ecosystem of ecosystems.”
From an ECIU University perspective, she emphasised how ULALABS aligns with the ambition to bring students, researchers, businesses, public administrations, civil society and citizens together to address real-world challenges through innovative education, interdisciplinary research and lifelong learning. She also highlighted the importance of embedding the tools and results developed through ULALABS into future challenge-based learning opportunities and wider innovation ecosystems.
You can consult the presentations from the event here.
🔗 Explore the publications:
Photos from the event:
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