Bridging Research and Practice: The Work That 'urban Labs' Do

Urban observatories, living labs, and other similar spaces have emerged as critical locations bridging policy, practice and research. They sit in liminal spaces between academic institutions, universities and policy spaces. They also offer opportunities to shape the politics of urban knowledge mobilization, driving narratives about the imagination of the city. They have emerged as institutions that cross conventional boundaries of research, practice, policy and method that are focused on producing and mobilizing urban knowledge for both research and decision-making. In contexts of dysfunctional or autocratic state institutions, some play a crucial role in upholding values of social and environmental justice, and advocating for collectives practices of city-making and solidarity.

Focusing on a few such institutions located in different geographical, political and social contexts, this panel brings together a collective of urban researchers and thinkers to reflect on the role of urban labs and observatories, the work that they do, the challenges they experience in times of crises and disasters, the amplified impacts they can have when they collaborate, and how they can enable us to work towards bridging the gap between research and praxis, science and policy, and theory and method.