Education & Capacity Building

Empowering public authorities through education and capacity building is at the core of the Living-in.EU concept. Our vision is to cultivate a connected and digitally literate society, well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the future.

Led by ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs), the Education & Capacity Building sub-group is dedicated to equipping public officers with the skills and methodologies necessary to thrive in an increasingly digital world.

Our Mission and Commitments:

Our mission aligns with a number of key commitments that guide our efforts:

Enhancing administrative capacities: We aim to empower public administrations to harness digitalisation effectively, avoiding technology or vendor lock-in.
Skills identification: We support the identification of new skills required by public authorities, facilitating workforce upskilling accordingly.
Citizen-centric design: We promote citizen-centric design approaches as a vital competence for public sector intermediaries and policymakers.
Co-creation and participation: We develop a culture of co-creative, participative and cross-sector approach to designing and implementing smart and sustainable local solutions.
Digital education access: We strive to provide citizens with access to platforms that facilitate digital education and skills development, enabling them to benefit from smart city solutions and participate in decision-making processes.
Knowledge sharing: We facilitate and coordinate activities focused on knowledge sharing, communication, dissemination, and consultancy. Our goal is to scale successful digital solutions through a participatory, cross-domain approach.
Collaborative acceleration: We seek to leverage opportunities and exchanges with projects that can accelerate deployment, including collaboration with Digital Innovation Hubs.

Work Plan Priorities for 2023:

In 2023, our key priorities include:

Enhancing user involvement: Increasing the skills of public administrations in involving users in Digital Twins Design, ensuring more user-centric solutions.
Training on Living Lab methodology applied to technology-oriented contexts: Hosting a training session on applying Living Lab methodology to Digital Twins, Data Spaces and AI co-creation and co-design, empowering cities in this endeavor.
Living-in.EU Catalogue of Tools: Assessing and populating the Catalogue of Tools within the Living-in.EU initiative.

The Living-in.EU movement serves as a hub for knowledge exchange, capacity building, and mutual learning in the context of the digital transformation of European cities, communities, and regions. We stress the central role of capacity building and the Living Lab approach within the Living-in.EU ecosystem.

As the coordinator of the Education & Capacity Building sub-group, ENoLL is committed to fostering citizen-centric and collaborative approaches to digital solution development in urban living labs. We emphasize active citizen involvement, local authority leadership, open innovation processes, and city-to-city collaboration to drive digital transformation and create smarter, more sustainable environments.

Report: Needs assessment of the Capacity building programme.

Education & Capacity Building tools:

European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities (EIF4SCC):

Austria