1. Spatial Analysis of Leading Circular Economy and Living Lab Cities
OpenLivingLab Days 2017
29/8/ /9/2017
Krakow, Poland

2. Circular Economy (CE)
Promotes resource minimisation and the adoption of cleaner technologies while maintaining the value of products, materials and resources in the economy for as long as possible and minimizing waste
3R's Principles (Ghisellini, et al. 2016, EC 2008)
The Reduction principle = reduce resource consumption and waste emissions
The Reuse principle = any operation by which products or components that are not waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived
The Recycle principle = any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes
Dimensions
Sustainable use of resources
Circular mobility
Resource efficient buildings and urban spaces

3. Background of the study
To understand the impact and added value of EU-funded projects from innovation system and policy development point of view
Preliminary results from “Cities as Living Labs — Increasing the impact of investment in the circular economy for sustainable cities” for EUROPEAN COMMISSION Directorate-General for Research and Innovation  Print samples are now available
What is a city?
City = Urban centre defined based on population size (>50k) and density (>1.500 per sq km) [Dijkstra and Poelman, 2012]
Having over inhabitants (N=517)

4. Data sources FP7/H2020 projects (N=137) 16 case studies databases
a city could is beneficiary, lighthouse city, follower city, benchmark city, observer city, demonstration city, case study city or pilot city.
16 case studies databases
Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, Sustainable Cities Platform, Urban Innovative Actions (UIA), The European Green Capital Award, The European Green Leaf, European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities Market Place, The Circular Europe Network, The Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities (RFSC), The European Capital of Innovation Award (iCapital), The Open & Agile Smart Cities initiative (OASC), The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, Eltis, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and EUROCITIES.
Living Labs (at city level)
The list of ENoLL’s effective members were used identify LL locations and their thematic areas.
The Living Lab maturity = Age in years, the number of different Living Labs and number of different thematic areas

5. FP7/H2020 CE/LL projects mapping
Barcelona is 1st with 11 (also Sabadell 3, Manresa 2)
6 projects
Amsterdam, Berlin, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Manchester, Milan and Turin
5 projects Copenhagen, Hamburg, Ljubljana and Rome
For 44 percent of projects (N=60) a reference to a city could not be found!
Mapping cities having 2 or more project references

6. FP7/H2020 vs. Urban strategy activity
Cities having an active urban strategy have also acted as a forum for FP7 and Horizon projects.
The correlation between project reference and urban strategy activity (0.753**)
Top cities having active urban strategy and
FP7/H2020 project references

7. FP7/H2020 vs. Living labs
A weak relation with Living Lab maturity and project references (correlation 0.290**).
Also a weak correlation between urban strategy activity and Living Lab maturity (0.311**).
Most mature Living Lab cities and
their EU-project references

8. Conculsions
The case web sites were used as a dissemination channel for EU-projects?
If yes = EU-funding play significant role in developing CE
If no = other funding will help building up the capabilities to gain EU-funding
Structural challenge
The leading cities are operating in many CE dimensions
EU-funding is helping them to increase the gap to others
A clear gap between Eastern and other European cities
EU-projects should better highlight the cross European participation
Opportunity for Living Labs
So far LLs have partially missed the opportunities even if CE theme is nearly a perfect match to LL-methodologies.