Introduction of URBAN LIVING LAB (ULL) at Elementary School Centrum 1 32, Dubnica nad Váhom, project Cicada4CE (17.2.2025)
Increasingly, cities are facing the negative effects of climate change and are struggling to adapt. However, their adaptation strategies often do not work according to the plan and expectations of communities, because citizens and stakeholders are not sufficiently involved in their development. The Interreg CICADA4CE project assists cities in designing and implementing an effective climate change policy, based on the concept of adaptation through ecosystem services and community-based activities. With the support of the Interreg CICADE4CE project, communities including citizens, entrepreneurs, public administrations, institutions and others are working together to create and implement proposals for improving public urban spaces in the context of climate change, in an environment we call Urban Living Labs (ULL). Communities are involved in living labs from the origination of an idea or identification of a problem, through suggestions of possible solutions, their selection to implementation and evaluation.
The first meeting on the establishment of such a live city laboratory in Dubnica nad Váhom took place on 17.2.2025 at the Primary School with Kindergarten Centrum I 32 in the presence of the Deputy Mayor of Dubnica nad Váhom, primary school and kindergarten teachers, students and pupils and researchers from the Institute of Management (UM) of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.
The ULL is a model of community cooperation in which community events are continuously implemented aimed at effectively managing the various challenges that the community faces. In Dubnica nad Váhom, the first such challenge will be the transformation of the Centrum Primary School and Kindergarten complex into a so-called smart community park, i.e. a new type of area in which various activities and functions addressing different groups of inhabitants will intertwine, green elements with digital innovations for teaching, play, but also the presentation of know-how for the public. As part of the school's activities, children and pupils can use their imagination and design, draw and combine the equipment of the so-called digital garden together. Several interactive and participatory techniques and methods will be implemented during the year. The design of the planned community park in cooperation with primary school pupils, kindergarten children, their teachers and parents will be created as part of the combination of written and artistic ideas on the given topic in the 5th and 9th grades of primary school and drawings within the kindergarten.
Our effort is to initiate and support the active participation of target groups of residents in defining the content and proposing interesting solutions for the Smart Community Park space. These activities should focus on the purpose and function of modern technical elements in the Smart Community Park, the design of utilitarian, ornamental and landscape greenery in its premises or the atmosphere during meetings of its users. The participation of users in the creation of a place (Place Making) through the implementation of their own ideas and ideas (co-creating method) contributes to the creation of identification with the place (Place Attachment) as well as to the creation of healthy communities and enrichment of the educational process.
Methodological and scientific-research support for these valuable community activities is implemented through the Interreg CICADA4CE project " Efficiency of the ClImate Change ADAptation management by integration of ecosystem services and smart social approaches in Central European cities", which is elaborated in 6 Central European countries (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, Germany) and in 5 pilot cities, under the leadership of the Institute for Ecology of Industrial Areas, Katowice, Poland. The Slovak partner of the project is the Institute of Management of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava and Spectra, Centre of Excellence. The pilot city is Dubnica nad Váhom.
