Smart City Living Lab
From Prototype to Urban Innovation – Tested, Validated, Delivered
How It Works
Co-create
Technology providers, public authorities, and communities collaborate to generate use cases and innovative solutions through crowdsourcing and participatory design.
Explore
Stakeholders, including user communities, engage in co-developing and adapting products under real or simulated conditions.
Experiment
Live deployment of technologies, gathering contextual data and feedback from users to validate functionality and adoption potential.
Evaluate
Multi-dimensional evaluation of new technologies (socio-ergonomic, socio-cognitive, socio-economic) to certify TRL advancement and market readiness.
Technologies and Platform
Smart City Living Lab operates an open data platform that collects real-time information from:
- IoT sensors (air quality, traffic, noise, energy)
- Public datasets
- Connected applications via APIs
Deployed technologies include:
- Smart Environment PRO
- Smart Agriculture Extreme
- Smart Cities PRO
- Meshlium Scanner
- Industry 4.0 kits
The platform allows innovators, SMEs, citizens, and public authorities to access and use live city data for development and validation projects.
Regional Impact
The project targets three transition regions: Western Macedonia (Greece), Centru (Romania), and Southeastern Bulgaria. These areas face the dual challenge of economic restructuring and fossil fuel phase-out.
COALition strengthens local ecosystems, builds capacity, and helps secure funding, laying the foundation for sustainable growth and job creation in emerging sectors like renewables, hydrogen, and energy efficiency.
Market Context
Coal regions across Europe are under pressure to phase out fossil fuels while preserving economic stability.
Despite their challenges, they also present major opportunities — with estimates of up to 314,000 jobs created through clean energy investments by 2030.
EU policies like the Green Deal, Just Transition Fund, and Hydrogen Strategy support this shift, yet local coordination, strategic planning, and skills development remain key barriers.
Beneficiary
Primary beneficiaries include workers in coal-related industries, regional and local authorities, innovation ecosystem stakeholders, academic institutions, and SMEs in the energy and tech sectors.
Broader beneficiaries include residents of transition regions, future investors, and the extended EU innovation community focused on clean energy and climate neutrality.
Stakeholder Network
COALition is implemented by a diverse consortium of partners from Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria, including public institutions, universities, regional agencies, private companies, and NGOs.
Key members include CERTH (leader), Iceberg Plus, UMFST Târgu Mureș, Sofia University, Mureș County Council, Stara Zagora REDA, and many more.
Smart City Living Lab is Iceberg+’s core infrastructure for smart urban innovation.
It creates an open, flexible environment for technology testing, development, and market transfer, supporting businesses, public institutions, researchers, and citizens.
The lab enables innovation through a structured Living Lab methodology combining real-world testing with co-creation processes, helping technologies move faster through the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) stages.
Regional Impact
Smart City Living Lab strengthens Romania’s regions by transforming them into models of sustainable urban development.
It has directly supported from Centru Region:
- 16 SMEs selected for real-world testing and validation.
- 2 SMEs reached advanced TRL levels and are market-ready.
Through deployments that provide live urban data (air quality, traffic, environmental monitoring) to municipalities and citizens.
Market Context
Aligned with EU smart city goals, the Living Lab bridges the gap between research and adoption by offering safe, real-data-rich environments.
Focus sectors include:
- Urban mobility
- Smart waste management
- Environmental monitoring
- Digital public services
- Smart energy systems
Digital transformation in these sectors represents a €110 billion/
year opportunity across Europe.
Beneficiary
- Startups and SMEs
- Local public administrations
- Universities and research centers
- Industrial players (telecommunications, energy, transport, waste management)
- Citizens and local communities
Our Living Lab Ecosystem
Following Iceberg+’s quadruple helix innovation model, the ecosystem connects:
- Public institutions
- Academic and research organizations
- Private sector and IoT/technology providers
- Citizens and communities (through alpha tester groups and participatory labs)
Every innovation is co-designed, tested, and validated with real users and real data.
Results
(Short Timeline)
Smart City Living Lab expanded the infrastructure of the Innovation and Technology Transfer Center (CITT-I4T).
The project was co-funded by the “Regional Operational Programme 2014–2020, Investment Priority 1.1.A, Regional State Aid Scheme for Investments to Support Innovation and Technology Transfer Entities under the ROP 2014–2020, Investment Priority 1.1.A" implemented between December 2021 – March 2024:
2021
Project launch, infrastructure setup, sensor installation and calibration.
2022
Deployment of the open data platform and IoT integration.
Creation of prototyping and demo labs.
Development of the Technology Transfer Toolkit.
2023–2024
16 SMEs selected for real-world testing and validation.
2 SMEs reached advanced TRL levels and are market-ready.
TODAY
The Living Lab platform is fully operational with open dashboards, interconnected data streams, and scalable technology transfer methodologies.
OUT
SMART THE MARKET
THINK THE STRATEGY
DO THE STATUS QUO
SMART THE MARKET
For startups, SMEs, academia, authorities.
For Bold ones.