University of Liverpool
Liverpool Living Lab Programme: Connecting Campus, Industry and Community
Finalist, Creating Impact
About
Operating with no dedicated funding and limited staff resources, the Living Lab programme at the University of Liverpool demonstrates how sustainability impact can be achieved through collaboration and innovation. Using the campus and wider city-region as a testbed, the programme brings together students, academics, professional services staff and external partners to address real-world sustainability challenges. Unlike many UK HE-sector living labs, which are typically delivered through research projects or dissertations, Liverpool’s approach is embedded within formal, informal and subliminal learning. Projects align with the Sustainability Strategy, delivering measurable educational and sustainability outcomes while advancing institutional priorities without significant new investment. The programme has strengthened sustainability culture across the university, enhanced student employability and provided a practical mechanism for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It has also increased civic engagement and generated scalable solutions that can be adopted by organisations across the Liverpool City Region.
Top 3 learnings
- Clear roles and responsibilities, KPIs and pre-agreed outputs helped us align projects with
strategic priorities. - Embedding living labs in our existing frameworks and roles created maximum impact with little
resource. - We transformed our challenges into opportunities by creatively adapting living labs to deliver
sustainability goals.
What it means to win
Although the University of Liverpool was relatively late to embed sustainability at scale, the establishment of a dedicated sustainability team in 2022 has accelerated transformative change across the institution. In just four years, we have integrated sustainability into institutional strategy, governance, and decision-making, delivering measurable impacts through our ambitious Sustainability Strategy and supporting plans. A Green Gown Award would recognise this rapid progress, strengthen the profile of sustainability across the University, and enable us to share our learning and drive wider sector-wide change.
Sustainable Development Goals
| 2026 | |
| Creating Impact | |
| Finalist, UK and Ireland |
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