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Torino City Lab — real-world urban testing laboratory

Italy · Turin · See the Italy profile

City of Turin laboratory (Torino Living Lab from 2016, Torino City Lab from 2018) offering simplified conditions for companies to test innovative solutions in real urban settings. Around 90 partners; Turin was named European Capital of Innovation 2024/25.

+46%
New hires among CTE NEXT accelerated startups
+91%
Female workforce among CTE NEXT accelerated startups
+20%
Share capital among CTE NEXT accelerated startups
+46%
ROI among CTE NEXT accelerated startups
Torino City Lab — real-world urban testing laboratory

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
City of Turin — Innovation and European Funds Division
Period
2016-present
Keywords
smart city, urban testbed, mobility, emerging technologies, 5G

Context

Torino City Lab is a City of Turin initiative that creates simplified conditions for companies to test innovative solutions of public interest in real urban conditions, tracing back to the 2016 Torino Living Lab and formally launched as Torino City Lab in October 2018, involving around 90 national and international public and private partners.

Objectives

To pair an always-open invitation to test solutions with challenge-led calls addressing territorial, administrative and citizen needs, organised around Smart Life, Future Mobility and Climate Neutrality (net-zero by 2030).

Activities

Ongoing real-world testing of solutions including a drone for organ transport (October 2024) and the AuToMove autonomous shuttle; in 2021 it spun off CTE NEXT (House of Emerging Technologies, financed by the Ministry of Economic Development, focused on 5G-enabled tech transfer) and in 2023 the ToMove living lab extended work into connected and autonomous mobility.

Results

An impact assessment of the CTE NEXT urban innovation lab found accelerated startups showed +46% new hires, +91% female workforce, +20% share capital and +46% ROI. Turin was named European Capital of Innovation (iCapital) for 2024/25 and is a member of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL).

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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