The UPCHAIN Living Lab
The UPCHAIN Living Lab in Pabbo serves as a central space for experimentation, collaboration, and learning throughout the project.
Rather than functioning as a traditional research facility, the Living Lab provides a real-world environment where technologies, practices, and organisational approaches can be developed and tested together with local stakeholders.
The Living Lab brings together researchers, community members, entrepreneurs, schools, and local institutions to explore how green charcoal innovations can contribute to more sustainable energy systems and livelihood opportunities.
What Happens in the Living Lab?
The Living Lab supports activities across several areas of the project, including:
- Testing and refining green charcoal production processes.
- Exploring new uses and applications of green charcoal products.
- Supporting collaboration between project partners and stakeholders.
- Facilitating learning across technical, social, educational, and environmental perspectives.
- Creating opportunities for local experimentation and problem-solving.
The Living Lab therefore functions as both a production site and a learning environment where ideas can be tested, adapted, and improved over time.
Connecting Research and Practice
A key characteristic of the Living Lab is that innovation takes place under real-life conditions. Activities are shaped by local resources, everyday practices, market opportunities, environmental conditions, and community needs.
This enables researchers and local stakeholders to work together in identifying challenges, testing possible solutions, and generating knowledge that is grounded in practice. The Living Lab thus creates a space where research and everyday experiences continuously inform one another.
Connecting the Work Packages
The Living Lab also plays an important role in connecting the different work packages within UPCHAIN. Insights from technical development, livelihoods, education, participatory mapping, modelling, and inclusive innovation activities come together through shared activities and collaboration.
By linking research, experimentation, and community engagement, the Living Lab supports a more holistic understanding of sustainable energy transitions.
Beyond a Physical Space
For UPCHAIN, the Living Lab is not only a location. It is also a collaborative approach that creates opportunities for co-creation, experimentation, and mutual learning. Through this process, the Living Lab supports the development of solutions that are both locally relevant and socially embedded.