The University Living Lab: Harnessing the potential of students to scale up green skills for sustainability

Students represent Universities’ greatest force for change. At the University of Manchester, our commitment to Social Responsibility and Civic Engagement sits as an equal goal of the University alongside Teaching and Research.  Reflecting the proud tradition of our industrial city, we make a difference, with and for, our communities near and far, as illustrated by our ongoing success in the Times Higher Education Sustainable Development Goals Ratings. Echoing Education for Sustainable Development, our students are not only part of that action, but, alongside our community partners, they co-construct our vision, our policy and moreover, our impact, as their skillsets are enhanced for a greener, healthier future. Our teaching and research come together in pioneering interdisciplinary research platforms such as Sustainable Futures that is producing integrated and truly sustainable solutions to urgent environmental challenges and socially responsible graduates who are equipped with knowledge and experience to positively contribute to our world as professionals, leaders and citizens of tomorrow. A flagship project of Sustainable Futures, is the University Living Lab. 

Living Labs are far from new within sustainability. Within the sustainability literature, living labs represent a form of governance through which stakeholders develop and test new technologies and ways of living to address the challenges of climate change and urban sustainability (Evans et al., 2015). As the term ‘Labs’ suggest, they involve staging intentional experiments in the real world, monitoring the results and replicating and scaling positive outcomes.  The Oxford Road Corridor that stretches through our University campus is an excellent example of a living lab in the UK, illustrating cross-sector partnerships between Manchester universities and industry to level up the City.  The University of Manchester’s University Living Lab builds upon the living lab concept by placing students at the heart of the process.  This is significant.  At the University of Manchester, students represent a potential force for change that is 46,000 strong. Students are an undervalued force for change for sustainable development, and Universities need new ways to connect their energy and intelligence to real world challenges.

Our model is based on the simple premise that if students have to do assessment, why don’t they do something useful (O’Brien, 2025).  As our recent Psychology with International Placement graduate, Holly Smith, put it: 

“Hours and pages of intelligence get LOST in the Virtual Learning Environment abyss during university. High quality research, well articulated papers, projects and presentations. Gone and forgotten on deadline day” (Smith, 2025)

For example, a piece of coursework asked students to (theoretically) ‘critically analyse a sustainable development initiative’. Meanwhile Kasaija John, Founder of St Veronica’s School in rural Uganda has rare internet access, let alone access to the wealth of policy documents and literature our students do.  If students have to critically analyse a sustainable development initiative, why not analyse John’s strategy to support women and girls to stay in education? 

The scale of this opportunity is alarming. Based on a rough analysis, if just a quarter of our students dedicated a single assignment to the University Living Lab, we could harness somewhere in the region of 7.5 million hours of research time that is lost to yet another essay, annually (Evans et al., 2016). Imagine the global potential of connecting this amount of resource to organisations fighting to deliver sustainability goals.  

We currently have around 150 projects with partners near and far, from sustainable transport and beekeeping in Manchester to education in Uganda.  Each project is tagged with the SDGs.  Students can adapt projects for coursework, for a dissertation, or essay, simply swapping in a real world example to address the question.  The research become part of the standard teaching programme; students undertake the work as normal, supported and marked by an academic. Projects are not supervised by the external partner; we allow agency and space for student creativity and criticality to come to the fore, often producing ideas that are new to the organisation. Quality research is returned to the organisation who set the challenge on the agreement that they share any impact enabled though the students’ research which we return to the student.

Our students have enabled the building of sustainable urban infrastructure, they have advised on council policy, they have informed awareness campaigns. We have supported sustainable development in Bangladesh and Zambia.  In a world of AI, this experiential learning approach enables students to apply their understanding to a genuine challenge, actively seeking new approaches whilst developing students’ skills. Many students have been employed by the organisations they researched for and many more attribute employment to the University Living Lab. 

Increasing numbers of courses, at all levels, are using the University Living Lab model as assessment for their teaching. As the issues of social, environmental and economic sustainability are interlinked, students working in interdisciplinary groups, or tackling the problem from a new disciplinary perspective adds value to the organisation’s work as they shed new light on old problems.  We are working closely with Manchester City Council for our students to deliver part of the Work and Skills plan through University Living Lab projects. 

Professor Duncan Iverson, Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Manchester says, “the great universities of the 21st century will be ones that are really committed to being engaged in their communities in really deep, sustained ways.” To do this, Universities must change how they conduct core business. Our University Living Lab approach is distinctive in not requiring significant investment and additional resource but rather better using the resources already available in Universities to deliver positive change. Students are our major resource.  Talented, interdisciplinary, creative students who all have to undertake assessment during the course of their degree and all have access to a wealth of resources in the library, possibly even data collecting equipment. Students who will become the future leaders, professionals and citizen, yes of tomorrow, but also whilst they are studying with us. Meanwhile, in a changing, and turbulent Higher Education landscape, the benefits of working in accessible, inclusive, partnership with students is increasingly valued.  The Advance HE framework notes benefits to the institution, to learning, to belong and to the general student experience of working in partnership (Advance HE, 2024). 

Missing from that framework is how students benefit the ‘real world’ beyond the institution. Whilst students are eager to make a positive difference, many have to commute, they may have caring commitments, they might have busy timetables upon which visas depend, and in a cost of living crisis may have to work; all of which can make co-curricular activities an expensive luxury.  Plus, if we are committed to making a difference we need to bring head, hearts and hands together within our core activities, to be accessible for all. Reflection on the process throughout is key. To adopt a truly transformative approach to, and through learning, especially in sustainability, we need to have uncomfortable conversations and think differently (Boler, 1999; Winks, 2014). The University Living Lab model offers a ‘brave space’ (Cook-Sather, 2020;2016) in which learners can, and will, be bolder in their approach, whilst developing the pedagogy.

During reflection, students appreciate their increased green skills, particularly when on less obviously green degrees.  We’re equipping all students with knowledge and experience to positively contribute to our world as professionals, leaders and citizens of tomorrow. As one student said in anonymous feedback: ‘I never realised that I could be a change maker for sustainability’. Our University Living Lab Champions, students from across the University at all levels, lead the Lab co-constructing our sustainability agenda and shaping the policy of their Civic University policy whilst catalysing sustainability transitions in the city that they call home.

The University Living Lab offers a scalable model to enhance employability skills, contribute towards graduate attainment and make societal progress for sustainability in an ever-changing world.

References

Advance HE (2024) Framework for Student Engagement through Partnership. (online) Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/framework-student-engagement-through-partnership-0 Accessed 08/09/2025

Bowler, M., (1999) Feeling power: emotions and education. Psychology Press, UK

Cook-Sather, A (2020) ‘Respecting voices: How the co-creation of teaching and learning can support academic staff, underrepresented students, and equitable practices’, Higher Education, 79 (5): 885-901.

Cook-Sather A (2016) Creating brave spaces within and through student-faculty pedagogical partnerships. Teach Learn Together High Education 1:1

Evans, J., Jones, R., Karvonen, A., Millard, L, Wendler, J., (2015) Living labs and co-production: university campuses as platforms for sustainability science. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 16 1-16

O’Brien, J., (2025) The University of Manchester Living Lab in R. M. White, S. Kemp. E.A.C. Price, J.W.S. Longhurst (eds)  Perspectives and Practices of Education for Sustainable Development. A Critical Guide for Higher Education London: Routledge P143

Winks, L. (2018). Discomfort, Challenge and Brave Spaces in Higher Education. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Implementing Sustainability in the Curriculum of Universities. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham