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Testbeds that contribute to the smart societies of the future.

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Background

Smart Built Environment is a strategic innovation program aiming to show how the built environment can contribute to Sweden’s journey towards becoming a pioneer among countries that realize the new possibilities that digitalization brings. It’s a long-term initiative that will bring about sustainable and integrated methods of construction, based on a common information structure. Smart Built Environment will create preconditions for Sweden’s international competitiveness and sustainable solutions for global challenges. Smart Built Environment is coordinated by IQ Samhällsbyggnad.

In the last few years, the use of the term testbed has increased in Sweden and several initiatives to push both quantity and quality of different testbeds have been initiated. Recently, the Swedish government launched the initiative Testbed Sweden, which aims to make it more attractive to invest in Swedish research and innovation environments.

Testbeds within Smart Built Environment will create and offer arenas for testing and verification of ideas relevant for achieving the long-term effect goals of the program: 40% decrease in environmental impact, 33% decrease in construction time, 33% decrease in construction costs, along with new value chains and business models.

Aim and goal

Swedishtestbeds is a strategic project within the Smart Built Environment focus area Innovation Lab.

The aim is to stimulate dialogue between people with ideas or who are running projects within digitalization in the built environment (testbed seekers), and people  with resources, arenas or concepts available for testing, verification and development of new ideas (testbed owners).

The goal is to create overview, dialogue and coordination in order to simplify the road from test and verification to developed concepts, to cross pollinate and enrich the ideas and to secure that relevant testbeds are used to the fullest extent. All these efforts aim to fast-track the commersialization of Swedish innovations.

What is a testbed?

Vinnova regards a testbed as a physical or virtual environment in which companies, academia and other organisations can collaborate in the development, testing and introduction of new products, services, processes or organisational solutions in selected areas.

In Vinnova’s survey of testbeds in Sweden, it’s also important that the testbeds be open to users outside the individual organisation and be available for use for lengthy periods by a variety of different actors.

Three types of testbed environments

Testbeds can involve almost any type of environment. To make matters easier, they generally are divided into three levels: laboratory environment, simulated environment and real environment. The first two environments are used primarily in academia and institutes and by industry, while the third largely involves the public sector.

Project group

The project group has developed this portal, and is  responsible for marketing and communication as well as support concerning the launch of the website. The project group consists of:

Sustainable Innovation, Byggherrarna, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Urban ICT Arena and WSP.

Reference group

The reference group has provided continued support in the development of this portal and consists of:

KTH Live-in Lab, Johanneberg Science Park, RISE, Lantmäteriet, Trafikförvaltningen, SABO, Skanska, Riksbyggen, Lindholmen Science Park, HBV, ÅF, Akademiska hus and Vinnova.

Development through collaboration

Through a number of workshops, the following actors have contributed to the development of this portal by providing their input:

KTH, Infrasweden 2030, Teknikföretagen / Produktion2030, KTH Live-In Lab, Elbil 2020, ElectriCITY Stockholm, Smartare Elektroniksystem, HSB, IoT Sverige, RE:Source SIP, White, BioInnovation, Chalmers Tekniska Högskola, Swerea IVF, Business Region Gothenburg, Business Region Stockholm, Smart Housing Småland, BeLivs, RISE Samhällsbyggnad Hållbara Energisystem.

Testbed Sweden – Vinnova

Vinnova is working to strengthen the prospects for testbeds in Sweden. The aim is to inform more businesses and organisations, large and small, of the available environments.

Test and demonstration environments, referred to as testbeds, are becoming increasingly important for the public and private sectors as goods and services are developed at a more rapid pace and they become increasingly complex.

Vinnova has been given responsibility for a national coordinating mechanism to strengthen test and demonstration activities in Sweden. We also want to provide and disseminate information on the hundreds of testbeds available in Sweden and work to ensure that these will also be attractive internationally.

At www.vinnova.se you can find more information about Swedish testbeds, guides and analyses, as well as training courses aimed at testbed owners.

Swedishtestbeds aims to complete and deepen the information that Vinnova provides in order to increase the dissemination and commersialization of innovations within the digitalized built environment field.