Name of Living Lab: Living Lab of Circularity (LLC)
Website URL: https://inagro.be/living-lab-and-cocreation
Established Year: 2021
Logo:
Contact Information:
Location: Ieperseweg 87, Roeselare, Belgium
The Living Lab Circular of Inagro aims to facilitate the role of agriculture in the circular economy through increased co-creation. This is not limited to circular solutions between farms but also between farms, industry, and society. Relevant topics within agriculture are water, nutrients, biomass, and energy.
Examples of previous projects are converting the fibres from the stems of Brussels sprouts into paper or testing cleaned wastewater from food industry as an irrigation source for vegetables. Also, anaerobic digestors can convert manure or food waste into heat, energy and upgraded fertilisers.
The LLC exists of a network of 20 stakeholder organisations from each party within the quadruple helix (society, industry, research, government). Furthermore, all pilot installations available at Inagro could be used for research at a practical relevant scale. This includes but is not limited to, insect halls, aquaculture installation, anaerobic digestor, greenhouses, climate rooms, adapted machinery for field trials, arable lands (organic and conventional), …
Frequent brainstorming with relevant stakeholders fuels the project ideas and submissions, which allows us to innovate and demonstrate at a practical relevant scale.
To make the Living Lab possible, >200 people work full time on agriculture research within the sectors of soil and water science, animal husbandry, agro-ecology, and crop production. Furthermore, the research on duckweed, mushroom, insect and fish production exceed the state of the art.
Mission:
The LLC stands for identifying relevant stakeholders and including them into the innovation process. This is done to adapt innovations as much as possible to the requirements of the farmers. Therefore, we introduce frequent feedback moments with the stakeholders through surveys, one-on-one interviews, brainstorms, forming steering groups and adapting the communication to the stakeholders.
Vision:
Our vision is that the sustainability and circularity of farming can be reached and improved by involving all stakeholders into the innovation process.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under grant agreement no 101060876. UK participants in Horizon Europe Project RURALITIES are supported by UKRI grant numbers: 10051963 The Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership and 10050988 Earthwatch Europe.
