The University of Dundee Botanic Garden, Living Lab: the power of partnerships

The University of Dundee Botanic Garden, Living Lab, is a co-creative initiative, integrating research and innovation, that presents an opportunity for students, academic staff, professional staff and external bodies to collaborate on projects exploring sustainability problems. It aims to host projects partnering with participants from different backgrounds, to collectively address real-world sustainability challenges by responding to opportunities. These challenges and opportunities include (but are not exclusive to) landscape issues, both green and blue infrastructure, education for sustainable development, nature connection, plant-blindness and nature-based solutions.

The Living Lab has grown out of a new doctoral programme with a focus on forming a cross disciplinary collaboration of established researchers, new post-doctoral students and self-funded PhDs and MSc’s that began in January 2021. Partners include local, national and international schools, research-based centres such as the James Hutton Institute and the Royal Society, other universities and various NGOs nationally and internationally. This paper begins by exploring the concept of a Living Lab, then goes on to review the University of Dundee’s Living Lab, based at the Botanic Garden. Drawing on reflective evaluation from stakeholders, this review looks back over the past two years, documenting the Living Lab’s germination from a seed of an idea to the flourishing ‘sapling’ that it has developed into. The paper then refocuses to capture hopes and aspirations for the next phase as we put down our roots and extend our branches further across the University, Dundee, the UK and beyond.