City as Lab: deeper partnerships and a new home  

City as Lab is entering an exciting new chapter – we’re deepening our partnerships in Nottingham and exploring new opportunities to deliver place-based research that will help shape policy interventions to improve lives in the communities we serve. We’re also establishing a new home in the heart of one of the historic areas of the city, the Broadmarsh regeneration zone, which will strengthen our civic mission and provide further opportunities for co-creation. 

To recap, City as Lab is a University of Nottingham programme that underlines our belief in the power of community engaged research and knowledge exchange. In September, we joined forces with the University’s Connect Nottingham initiative, a vehicle for participatory research supported by a major capital grant from the Garfield Weston Foundation. Together, the two programmes provide new opportunities for researchers, communities, policymakers and businesses to come together through convening space in the heart of Nottingham and digital and immersive tools for testing new ideas. 

This week, City as Lab is exhibiting at Futureproof 2026, a major national sustainability forum taking place in Nottingham. Delegates, including national policymakers, civic leaders and global, regional and local innovators, will have the opportunity to explore the award-winning Projection Augmented Relief Model (PARM), a physical 3D map of Nottingham that can visualise place-based data in wonder-inspiring ways. Our PARM lead, the School of Geography’s Dr Gary Priestnall, will highlight how the model can help visualise change and  and explore how decisions have shaped Nottingham’s development over time, from green space to river use. 

City as Lab has also recently hosted major stakeholder events for Nottingham City Council to help launch its Nottingham Vision consultation. Combining high-level workshops with a month-long public survey, this consultation invites communities to shape the development and growth of the city and its neighbourhoods in the years ahead. 

To kick-off Nottingham Vision, City as Lab welcomed the Council’s Chief Executive Sajeeda Rose and partners from across the city and region to Castle Meadow Campus where our Nottingham PARM was used to stimulate discussion about the past, present and future of the city. Bringing together open access data from the university, the city council and partners such as Experian, PARM enabled participants to gather round the model to discuss challenges and opportunities for the city, from housing and access to work to transport infrastructure, culture provision and sense of belonging.

We’ve hosted similar Nottingham Vision workshops for community and voluntary sectors and the property and development industry, all attended by city council executive members and elected leaders including the Police and Crime Commissioner for Nottinghamshire, Gary Godden.  

PARM presentation for Nottingham Council’s Chief Executive Sajeeda Rose and partners from across the city and region.

Following the compact with the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) we’re now exploring how City as Lab, through its EMCCA PARM, can further harness the power of data to inform regional challenges, from food insecurity to health inequality.  

A new home in the heart of the city 

City as Lab and Connect Nottingham are due to move to a new city-centre location, which will allow us to build on such strategic partnerships while widening engagement with communities. 

From March, we will be starting a residency at Nottingham Central Library. This airy, spacious building is a major civic hub and we’re delighted to be deepening our partnership with Nottingham City Council by finding such a well-located temporary home after leaving Castle Meadow Campus. Relocating the Nottingham city PARM to its own space in the library will provide new opportunities for public and policy engagement, and we are already working with library, council and university colleagues to develop programme activities.  

Meanwhile, we are in talks to find a new home for the Nottingham Urban Room, a partnership between the university and the city council that provides a creative space for civic dialogue and interdisciplinary research around place, planning and policy in the city. The Urban Room will house the PARM and Connect Nottingham’s state-of-art immersive lab alongside collaboration and cafe space for workshops and community engagement. This will provide exciting opportunities to forge new partnerships and incubate ideas for innovations that address real-world challenges in the Nottingham city region. 

At its heart, City as Lab is about creating conditions for inclusive place-based collaboration and policy insight. The Nottingham Urban Room will be a hub where researchers, community organisations, voluntary groups, public bodies and industry can come together with a shared sense of purpose: to improve the lives of people in Nottingham and the East Midlands. Our spring/summer residency at Nottingham Central Library, located close to the library’s immersive room in the children’s book floor, is an exciting next step on this journey.