Live Labs -Next Facebook coming from one of these labs folkshttps://www.adeptnet.org.uk/system/files/documents/LL%20White%20Paper%20%231%20SEPT%202020.pdf
The early days of Live Labs The Live Labs grew out of a desire to accelerate innovation in the local roads sector. Initial research through the ADEPT SMART Places programme recognised that opportunities for innovation in the sector were often being missed, and where they were occurring were not necessarily consistent. Following discussions with ADEPT local authority and commercial partners on how a potential innovation programme could form, a streamlined competitive approach was developed, and a prospectus published. The prospectus was not prescriptive in its requirements. It described a vision for innovation for the sector encompassing the four pillars of smart materials, energy, communications and mobility, thus allowing for real innovation and exploration of techniques and solutions new to the UK to deliver measurable outcomes. In late 2018, a shortlist of bidders pitched their ideas to an independent ‘Dragon’s Den’. Recommendations were then made to the sponsor, the Department for Transport. DfT committed £23million to the two year programme, with funding coming on stream in May 2019. This approach of a lean competition, focusing on innovation and the downstream outcomes, has meant that much of the usual development that would be part of the ‘bid’ stage in traditional competitions has effectively moved to the mobilisation stage. At the heart of the programme is our ethos of taking an ‘open’ approach to sharing insights, learning and application, to ultimately allow others to develop business cases that adopt similar innovations building on the developed evidence base.