As a Living Lab, we offer City assets and infrastructure for companies, researchers and individuals to test their products and try out their ideas in a real-life environment. The end goal is to enable innovators to test and validate their designed product or service before it is released to the public to help ensure it will be generally feasible and provide utility for global users’ daily lives.

The program can help any company, researcher or individual looking to access City assets or infrastructure to test their products or services in a real-life environment. Please note this program is for research and testing purposes only.

The City owns many assets and has infrastructure that can be accessed across our community. This includes but is not limited to roadways, land and buildings. If you have a specific request, please email LivingLabs@calgary.ca. 

An important step in the development of innovative products, services or ideas is to test them out in an environment as close as possible to where and how they will be used in the end. Because The City owns many assets across our community, we can make Calgary more business friendly and support economic diversification by opening up these assets and helping researchers and entrepreneurs bring their big ideas to life.

Yes, Living Labs can be used to help test new ideas for implementation or existing ideas for improvement or other research. If you have a question about whether Living Labs can help with your testing, please email LivingLabs@calgary.ca.

Yes, we offer City assets and infrastructure for companies, researchers and individuals from around the world to test their products and try out their ideas in a real-life environment. Calgary’s specific altitude, geographic location, or urban density, for example, can offer the ideal conditions for innovators to test their ideas out in.

No. The Living Labs program is not a procurement channel and piloting through the Living Labs does not guarantee future work with The City of Calgary. All future procurement of services is managed through The City of Calgary’s procurement process. See bid and vendor information for more information.

If you are interested in accessing City infrastructure for testing or piloting an idea, please fill out the Living Labs Intake Form and email it back to us at livinglabs@calgary.ca. Once the intake form is received, our team will review the intake form and get back to you to discuss further. 

After the initial intake meeting, the pilot application will be submitted for review and approval to proceed. Successful applicants will then engage the city subject matter experts to define requirements, research needs, establish roles and responsibilities and pilot planning.

Each request is unique and timing is dependent on a number of factors. Once the intake form is received, our team will review the intake form and get back to you to discuss further. 

No. The purpose of the Living Labs program is to facilitate access to city assets for research and testing purposes only. The Living Labs program is not a procurement channel and piloting through the Living Labs does not guarantee future work with The City of Calgary. All future procurement of services is managed through The City of Calgary’s procurement process. See bid and vendor information for more information. 

No. The Living Labs program is an unfunded program. Funding is not provided for Living Lab pilots. All business owners and researchers are responsible for their own piloting costs, while The City provides access to City assets for testing purposes.