We understand Living Labs as innovative efforts, focused on integrating research, teaching and administration, test and further develop sustainability-related ideas, products, services or processes to realize the goals of our Climate Emergency Declaration of December 2019 and the Sustainability Mission Statement of Freie Universität Berlin (2016).

Living Labs are meant to encourage and enable everyone at Freie Universität to help develop sustainability-oriented innovations, as climate protection and sustainable development are best achieved when university members from as many different fields as possible play an active role in the innovation and implementation processes required for this purpose. For this, Freie Universität and its campuses can be used more intensively as a place for research and practice of sustainable development.

To support interested individuals, we offer funding for the establishment of such communities of research and practice (living labs) at Freie Universität. In our video post "Living Labs - what they are and what opportunities they bring" we give a brief overview of existing concepts on Living Labs, explain our definition in the context of promoting Living Labs at Freie Universität, and give an example for orientation. **Please check out the subtitle in the video - click on the little "bubble"- symbol in the video. In our video post "Ways to promote research and practice communities (Living Labs) at Freie Universität Berlin" we explain who and what is funded as well as what has to be considered for the application.

• Multispecies Campus - a Living Lab for Biodiversity, Creativity and Health is the first funded Living Lab.
• Another Living Lab was funded in 2024 - information on this can be found here.

• The network Reallabore der Nachhaltigkeit and an overview of approaches by others can also serve as inspiration.

The funding program is currently being evaluated - the changes will be communicated on this page from January 2025. Note: The funding for 2025 is expected to be able to support two Living Labs with €30,000 each. We are currently (as of 25.11.2024) not accepting applications. Interested parties can still find out more, contacting Sabine Heckmann.