The EUPeace Living Peace Lab is the Alliance-wide framework through which our nine universities and their societies work together on peace, justice and inclusive societies. It connects academic knowledge and expertise with societal needs and perspectives, and creates the spaces in which universities and external stakeholders address shared challenges together.
Drawing on Living Lab principles, the Living Peace Lab has grown from a set of individual projects into an integrated ecosystem. Dialogue, co-creation, education and follow-up are deliberately connected rather than run as separate activities — because that is where societal engagement has proved most effective.
How the Living Peace Lab is built – the three building blocks
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1. Societal Dialogue Groups
Multi-stakeholder advisory bodies that connect EUPeace institutions with societal actors and priorities. They identify the challenges worth working on, advise on activities, and keep the Lab accountable to the regions it operates in.
- Local Each university’s SoDiG connects it with the actors and priorities of its own region, bringing external perspectives into the identification of challenges.
- Alliance-wide Brings together societal perspectives from across EUPeace and advises on shared and transversal priorities, strengthening the European dimension of societal dialogue.
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2. Living Lab Projects
Co-created responses to concrete societal challenges. Teams bring together university staff, students and partners from civil society, public administration and the private sector — so their value lies as much in the relationships and collaborative capacity as in the outputs delivered.
- Local Projects rooted in one university and its region, responding to challenges identified there.
- Alliance-wide Cross-institutional projects on challenges of shared European relevance, connecting teams in several countries around a common question (coming soon).
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3. Bridge Formats
The bridge between the university and everyone outside it. Bridge Formats are where a societal question becomes a conversation, a conversation becomes a collaboration, and a collaboration becomes part of what students are taught.
- Bridge Dialogue Formats Structured spaces for dialogue and exchange between academia and society around issues of societal relevance, generating ideas, partnerships and themes for further collaboration. Explore →
- Joint Activities Collaboration with public authorities on questions of local and regional relevance. Explore →
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- Soft skills courses — the competences community engagement requires. Browse the courses →
- Curricular community engagement — collaboration with communities built into degree programmes. Educational Pathways Where societal engagement enters teaching and learning, through two connected routes.
- Explore all the Bridge Formats →
How the Living Peace Lab works
The Living Peace Lab follows a local-to-Alliance model. Locally embedded structures are the foundation; Alliance-level coordination connects them. The relationship is not simply hierarchical — local experience, societal priorities and good practice inform Alliance-level developments, while Alliance coordination provides shared structures, resources and opportunities for collaboration.
- LocalLocal Living Peace Lab coordination, SoDiGs, and project and activity teams. They coordinate implementation, connect the Lab with institutional and societal stakeholders, and bring local priorities into the wider Lab.
- Alliance coordinationThe coordination team maintains the common framework, coordinates monitoring, exchange and collaboration between institutions, and facilitates shared approaches and joint initiatives.
- Alliance-wideThe Alliance-wide SoDiG brings together societal perspectives from across EUPeace, advises on shared and transversal priorities, and strengthens the European dimension of societal dialogue.
Each EUPeace partner university develops and coordinates its own Local Living Peace Lab. As the Lab develops, this local foundation supports Alliance-wide structures and activities: an Alliance-wide SoDiG, cross-institutional Living Lab Projects and joint Bridge Dialogue Formats on challenges of shared European relevance.
A common set of resources — the Living Peace Lab Guidelines and supporting templates — promotes consistency across the Alliance while leaving room for local adaptation. See the resources and guidelines →
Where the Living Peace Lab works
Living Peace Lab activities take place across all nine EUPeace partner universities and their regions: Marburg University (Germany), Justus Liebig University Giessen (Germany), the University of Limoges (France), the University of Calabria (Italy), Comillas Pontifical University (Spain), the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (Czech Republic), the University of Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Çukurova University (Türkiye) and the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
