08 March 2018

Living Lab project funding opportunity

The Living Lab programme has identified an opportunity to fund collaborative projects delivering our Carbon Management Plan (CMP) aims.

Working with the Energy Team and the Sustainability Service, applications will be accepted from all University staff and students until the closing date on Friday 6 April 2018. We will consider projects on a variety of scales and prefer opportunities to match-fund.

The University’s CMP seeks to reduce our carbon emissions from buildings and owned vehicles, as well as reduce our consumption of water by 35% by 2020 (against the 2005/06 carbon emissions baseline), in line with the University’s Sustainability Strategy.

Potential projects could include research into renewable generation equipment, battery storage and grid flexibility, efficient laboratory equipment or practices, energy or water efficiency software. They would be research-based but the CMP element would persist beyond the research period (i.e. enable the University to reduce its carbon emissions or its potable water consumption). Projects will be collaborations between academic and operational teams in the University, and might include external partners.

To qualify for this Living Lab funding, the project must seek to:

  • integrate sustainability-related research, student education and University operations to drive continual and sustainable improvement
  • be delivered in alignment with the key aims and themes of the University’s Strategic Plan and underpin delivery of the Sustainability Strategy
  • support the University’s research themes; be about people, processes and infrastructure, drawing on the cultural and social sciences, as well as the STEM subjects
  • identify, test and embed transformational solutions to ‘real world’ sustainability challenges, whilst being scalable, replicable and transferable to our cities and regions
  • drive experimental learning, enhanced participation and opportunities for outreach and engagement through co-creation and co-implemented campus-based solutions; and
  • be interdisciplinary and delivered in partnership with mutual benefit to stakeholders, to increase impact and to enhance shared knowledge and action.

Contact Thom Cooper (Sustainability Programme Officer) to discuss opportunities.

Applications should be submitted using the Living Lab application form and submitted to Thom Cooper before midnight on 6 April 2018.

Posted in: