Barcelona Urban Lab: Barcelona`s initiative to foster pre-commercial and public procurements of innovative products and services

This document aims to reflect on how Urban Labs are instruments used by governments to encourage innovation in the management of cities and their businesses, in particular, based on experience led from the Barcelona City Council. \n\nBARCELONA URBAN LAB was created as a specific line of action to foster use of the city as an urban laboratory. Through this project, the city is made available to companies with innovative projects to test their infrastructures and services for the future in a real environment. So Barcelona Urban Lab becomes an effective tool for the City Council to promote business innovation and consolidate Barcelona as an innovative city. Thanks to these pilots, companies innovate, the city improves the services by making them more efficient and sustainable, and citizens enjoy from improved services. Since 2008, more than 50 pilot proposals have been received and more than 14 pilots have been installed in Barcelona streets, in domains as Enviroment, Mobility, Telecom, etc.