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Paris Urban Lab (Paris&Co) — metropolitan urban experimentation platform
France · Paris · See the France profile · See the Paris profile
Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 18% 81/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice
Paris&Co's Urban Lab (2010) and its metropolitan successor QMI (2022) test urban prototypes in real Parisian streets. OECD Cogito (2025) calls it 'Europe's largest urban experimentation program': 75+ prototypes across 10 Greater Paris districts, 100+ startups supported annually.
75+ prototypes
Urban prototypes targeted across metropolitan districts (target by 2026)
10 districts
Metropolitan Innovation Districts (QMI) (since 2022)
400+ projects
Projects supported by Paris&Co (2024)
2,528 jobs
Jobs generated by incubated startups (cumulative, 320 incubated startups)
600+ million EUR
Capital raised by portfolio startups (6 months)
Details
- Maturity
- Scaling
- Promoter
- Paris&Co
- Period
- 2010–present
- Region (NUTS)
FR10- Keywords
- public-private
Context
Since 2010, Paris&Co — the economic development and innovation agency of the City of Paris, founded in 1996 — has operated the Urban Lab, a platform for testing urban innovation in real public spaces. In 2022, Paris&Co and the Grand Paris Metropolis launched the Metropolitan Innovation Districts (Quartiers Métropolitains d'Innovation, QMI), expanding the testbed model to ten metropolitan districts.
Objectives
The Urban Lab co-designs and deploys real-world experiments with startups, researchers and city departments on themes from smart urban furniture and air quality to convenience retail and sustainable mobility.
Activities
Live QMI experiments include eco-designed street furniture (PURPL), mobility monitoring (Ecoflow), cargo bikes for public employees (Pelican Cycle) and solar self-consumption (Faradae). In 2024, Paris&Co supported over 400 projects through incubation, experimentation and social-innovation programmes, backed by a permanent team of 46 people and financed by the City of Paris and corporate partners.
Results
The OECD Cogito blog (September 2025) described QMI as 'Europe's largest urban experimentation program', targeting more than 75 urban prototypes across the ten districts by 2026. Paris&Co's 320 incubated startups generated 2,528 jobs, and portfolio startups raised over €600 million in six months.
Conclusions
The Urban Lab's international reach extends to a partnership with Tunisia's first private incubator (Wiki Start Up, 2021) and a sports-innovation collaboration with Aichi Prefecture, Japan (2024); Paris&Co's 30-year history and the Urban Lab's 15-year track record support continuity across political cycles, though impact data specific to the urban-experimentation arm (as opposed to the incubation arm) remain largely qualitative.
Implementation
- Indicative cost
- High (€500k–€5M) — Funded by the City of Paris and 100+ corporate partners; specific programme budget not disclosed in source.
- Time to results
- Long (> 3 years) — Urban Lab operating since 2010; QMI metropolitan expansion launched 2022, targeting 75+ prototypes by 2026.
- Staffing & skills
- Permanent team of 46 people at Paris&Co
Conditions for success
- Dual funding from the City of Paris budget and 100+ committed corporate partners
- 30-year institutional history (Paris&Co) providing continuity across political cycles
- Structured thematic 'editions' co-designed with startups, researchers and city departments
Common failure modes
- Published employment and fundraising figures (2,528 jobs, €600M) belong to Paris&Co's incubation arm overall and are not separable from the urban-experimentation arm specifically
Where it fits
- Governance type
- public-private innovation agency (Paris&Co) partnered with Grand Paris Metropolis
- Scale
- metropolitan (10 Greater Paris districts)
Commonly funded by
National / regional programmes European Urban Initiative
Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.
Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
- C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-20
- Paris&Co — accessed 2026-06-20
- Urban Lab official site (Paris&Co) — accessed 2026-06-20
- OECD Cogito — Paris&Co territorial innovation (Sep 2025) — accessed 2026-06-20
- City of Paris — QMI laureates 4th edition — accessed 2026-06-20
- AFD Smart City Guide — Urban Lab profile — accessed 2026-06-20
Where it's been adopted
Documented replications and adaptations of this practice elsewhere.
| Place | When | Adopter | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aichi Prefecture, Japan | 2024 | Aichi Prefecture | Sports-innovation collaboration applying the Urban Lab's experimentation approach in Aichi, Japan. |
| Tunisia | 2021 | Wiki Start Up (Tunisia's first private incubator) | Partnership extending the Urban Lab's experimentation methodology and support to Tunisia's startup ecosystem. |
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