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India and Denmark
collaborate to create
India’s first urban living lab





Our vision is to implement new urban approaches and global solutions for sustainable cities in collaboration with residents, policymakers, public bodies, businesses, and academia.



CONTEXT

The Government of India is working to address the challenges of rapid urbanization through several urban programmes which aim to make cities sustainable, smart and inclusive.

The People's Urban Living Lab in Panaji, Goa contributes to this transformation in cities. This joint initiative between India and Denmark is implemented under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Royal Danish Embassy and the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL). The project is financed by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Royal Danish Embassy, New Delhi for a period of two years.

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About PULL

People's Urban Living Lab (PULL) was institutionalized in 2019 under the name of Project Urban Living Lab. It was a collaborative effort between Transitions Research, Oxford Policy Management, The Energy and Resources Institute, The Royal Danish Embassy and The Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited.

Since 2022, Transitions Research has been operating People's Urban Living Lab to co-create, design and test people-centric, sustainability solutions to help create cities that we want to live in. Growing mid-sized cities in India are sites of immense spatial, social and political changes, our Lab aims to help us explore alternative futures by testing socio-technical innovation to co-create solutions with urban communities.

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Objective & Functions

The objectives of the PULL are to:

  • ➠ work towards helping cities address sustainability and liveability by integrating global and local solutions

  • ➠ bring global solutions to Indian cities using the sandbox approach

  • ➠ enable the smooth implementation of the Smart Cities Mission








Its core functions are:

  • ➠ learning by using multi-disciplinary approaches to learn and create knowledge about urban problems

  • ➠ engaging with governments, private actors and policy knowledge institutions to review, select, design, test and fine tune relevant global solutions to their needs

  • ➠ co-creating collaborative spaces for residents to participate in urban planning processes

  • ➠ experimenting to test local and global solutions, knowledge and approaches through a sandbox



Impacts of the PULL

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Creating

liveable smart cities in India that integrate global sustainable solutions to address complex urban challenges

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Enabling

the smooth delivery of Smart City projects by providing learnings from innovative experiments in Panaji

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Building

knowledge on global practices for sustainable cities’ interventions in India