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As the programme enters its fourth year, Giles Perkins Live Labs 2 Programme Director, reflects on the shift from innovation to adoption and introduces the new online Live Labs 2 Triage sessions which have been designed to help local highway authorities apply the programme’s learning in practical and accessible ways.

It was fantastic to launch the first session on Tuesday 12 May and to already see the appetite across the sector for practical conversations around implementation and delivery. The discussion reflected exactly why this service matters. Authorities are keen to learn from one another and they are looking for evidence, examples and honest reflections that can help shape local decision making.

That same spirit carried through into the ADEPT Spring Conference in London on Wednesday 13 May where the Live Labs 2 projects took centre stage as part of the day’s agenda. It was hugely encouraging to see the level of interest from delegates and the growing recognition that the programme’s learning now has an important role to play in supporting the wider sector. This was also amplified by the Minister, Simon Lightwood, who highlighted some of the benefits arising from the programme and by Patricia Thornley, the Chief Scientific Adviser who led the Live Labs 2 session at the conference. 

From ideas to innovation to sharing practical learning

Over the past three years, Live Labs 2 has brought together local authorities, industry and academic partners from across the UK to challenge, test and explore new ways of decarbonising local roads infrastructure. 

What began as a bold innovation programme has now generated a substantial body of evidence, insight and practical learning that has relevance far beyond the original project teams and their partners.

As we move into Year 4 of the programme, the focus is now shifting from testing and trialling towards something equally important, adoption. That means helping local highway authorities understand what works, where and why it works and how those approaches could be adapted and applied within their own local context. It also means making the learning from Live Labs 2 more accessible, more practical and easier to engage with for authorities across the sector.

Attending a triage session

Designed to give local authorities direct access to the programme team through a series of unique and free monthly online drop in sessions, the aim is simple: We want to help authorities connect their local challenges with the learning, evidence and ultimately the solutions emerging from across the Live Labs 2 projects. 

No formal presentations or lengthy workshops. They are intended to be open, approachable and useful conversations where colleagues can bring real world questions, discuss local priorities and explore what lessons from the programme may help support their own objectives. The sessions can be one-to-one if preferred.

The Triage service will run online via Microsoft Teams on the second Tuesday of each month and authorities can join on a flexible basis. 

Authorities can speak with the programme team to learn how learnings and solutions for the decarbonisation of highways, can be applied to their local needs and help deliver tangible benefits including cost savings.

One of the most exciting things about Live Labs 2 is the sheer breadth of innovation and learning that has emerged across the seven projects and four interconnected themes. We have seen practical work around low carbon materials, asset management, lighting, grass verges, place-based decarbonisation and the wider highways lifecycle. 

Importantly, the programme has never been about innovation for innovation’s sake. The ambition has always been to generate approaches that can help local authorities reduce carbon, improve efficiency and support better decision making, now and for the future.

Making Live Labs 2 learning business as usual

As the projects move beyond delivery and into dissemination and scaling, the question becomes: how do we make sure this learning reaches the people who can benefit from it most? 

There is not one typical answer. One local authority might want to better understand how the efficiencies uncovered in the programme might be applied to their services, others may want a focus on low carbon maintenance approaches. Another may be exploring how to embed carbon considerations into procurement or asset management. Others may be interested in materials innovation, smarter data use or understanding how behaviour change can support decarbonisation objectives. The sessions create a route into the programme for all of these conversations.

In many ways, Year 4 is about making innovation feel achievable and supporting local authorities who are under enormous pressure already. Nobody needs another layer of complexity. What they do need is access to practical evidence and learning and honest conversations with people who understand the realities of delivering highways services on the ground.

The response to the Triage launch has already been incredibly positive and I think that reflects a growing appetite across the sector to move beyond pilots and towards embedding lower carbon approaches as business as usual. 

The key message is that the learning from Live Labs 2 is not limited to the original project teams. It belongs to the wider sector and we want authorities of every size and geography to feel able to engage with it, question it and apply it in ways that work for them locally.

Innovation only matters if it leads to change. Year 4 is about helping that change happen.

Further information

• The ADEPT website features a new, AI-powered large language search model, making it easier for local authorities and industry professionals to quickly access reports, toolkits, project blogs, evidence and resources from across the Live Labs 2 programme. Simply navigate to the top right-hand corner of the ADEPT website to find the Ask AI function and use it to search for what you need from the Live Labs 2 projects.
• For more information on ADEPT Live Labs 2: Decarbonising Local Roads in the UK, please look at the Live Labs 2 section on the website
• The next Triage session will take place on Tuesday 9^th June between 14:00-16:00 - find out more about and register for a future session
• You can discover more about the Live Labs 2 Decarbonisation of Highways Pledge here and the launch event at Westminster here

Author

Giles Perkins is Programme Director for Live Labs 2