One-liner: València's membership in the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) — the city plus the UPV campus operate as a certified open-innovation testbed for climate-neutral solutions, delivered through Missions València 2030. A "strategic umbrella" that sits alongside the Valencia Urban Sandbox as part of the city-as-laboratory positioning — not a program to apply to directly, but the governance layer behind one.
What a founder gets
- ENoLL-recognised living-lab status — real urban + university-campus environments for co-creating and validating climate, mobility and energy innovations with citizens, researchers and the municipality, under an internationally recognised open-innovation methodology.
- UPV campus as a testbed — the university runs its own Living Lab on-campus (ENoLL member in its own right), giving founders access to a controlled academic environment as well as the open city.
- Mission-governance framing — access is organised around the Climate Mission València 2030 (Mariana Mazzucato-style mission-oriented innovation governance), meaning founders plug into thematic co-creation calls rather than a single static grant window.
- For the concrete, apply-to instrument (eligibility, deadlines, how-to-engage steps), see the fully enriched program page: Valencia Living Lab (Program).
Who it's for
- Cleantech, urban-tech, mobility and energy startups whose solution needs real-world, citizen-facing validation toward climate neutrality — València is one of the EU's 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030.
- Works alongside the Valencia Urban Sandbox (the formal testing/legal instrument) — Living Lab is the co-creation umbrella, Urban Sandbox is the regulated access mechanism.
How to engage
- Engage via Missions València 2030 (missionsvalencia.eu) — join co-creation calls / mission projects tied to the Climate Mission.
- Formalise real-world testing through the Valencia Urban Sandbox once a pilot is defined.
- UPV founders/researchers can additionally access the campus Living Lab directly through the university.
- Combine with sector-specific cleantech supports: AVAESEN LLAMP 3i, IVACE Eficiencia Energetica.
Key facts
- ENoLL membership — one of a small set of Spanish members recognised for open-innovation, user-driven testbeds.
- Delivered under Missions València 2030 (missionsvalencia.eu), the city's mission-oriented innovation-governance model, tied to the Climate Mission València 2030.
- Runs prizes + grants for innovation projects impacting the climate mission (2026 application windows closed 25 Apr and 19 May — confirm next cycle). #status/verify
- Positioned as a cross-cutting "strategic umbrella": per
raw/research/2026-06-30-non-financial-support.md, this and the Urban Sandbox together frame the whole city as an experimentation space — described internally as "the deepest moat" for non-financial support positioning, since founders rarely know they can co-design/validate at this level versus just seeking grants.
Relations
- Runs: Valencia Living Lab (Program)
- Run by: Ayuntamiento de Valencia
- Partners with: Valencia Urban Sandbox
- See also: Valencia Urban Sandbox
- See also: Testbeds (support)
- See also: Tourism (niche)
- See also: Estrategia Urbana Valencia 2030
- See also: Cleantech (niche)