FUTURE CITIES LAB LTD

Their core work

Future Cities Lab Ltd is a London-based private consultancy working at the intersection of urban design, public health, and citizen-centred services. Their H2020 participation shows expertise in how city environments can be redesigned to improve health outcomes — particularly for aging populations and in the context of environmental sustainability. They contribute a practitioner and design perspective to research consortia, translating research questions about urban living into actionable service concepts or policy insights. As a small private company, they likely bring real-world city engagement and stakeholder facilitation skills that complement the academic and technical partners in large consortia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both projects started within a year of each other (2015–2016), so there is limited chronological separation to identify a genuine shift. The earlier project (City4Age) concentrated on a specific population — elderly residents — and service-level interventions in the city. The later project (PULSE) broadened the lens to all urban residents and added an environmental sustainability dimension alongside health. This suggests a possible trajectory from targeted population health in cities toward broader, systems-level urban sustainability — though with only two data points and no keyword metadata, this reading is tentative.

The shift from elderly-focused city services to participatory urban sustainability suggests this organisation may be positioning itself toward broader smart-city and environmental health work, though the evidence base is too thin to call this a firm direction.

How they like to work

Future Cities Lab has never coordinated an H2020 project — they joined both projects as a partner, suggesting they operate as a specialist contributor rather than a consortium driver. Their two projects produced 25 unique partners across 9 countries, which is notably broad and indicates they joined large, internationally diverse consortia rather than small bilateral arrangements. This profile suits organisations that bring a niche expertise or facilitation role and rely on larger academic or institutional partners to anchor the consortium.

Despite only two projects, Future Cities Lab has connected with 25 unique consortium partners spanning 9 countries — a notably wide network for this volume of activity. This breadth reflects their participation in large, multi-partner RIA consortia rather than targeted bilateral collaborations.

What sets them apart

As a small private company (not a university or research institute), Future Cities Lab brings a practitioner and design-consultancy perspective that is often scarce in academically dominated research consortia — particularly valuable for user engagement, service prototyping, and translating research outputs into city-applicable concepts. Their dual focus on health and urban sustainability positions them at a genuinely cross-disciplinary intersection where few private SMEs operate. For a consortium coordinator looking to balance academic rigour with real-world applicability in urban or public health projects, they represent an uncommon profile.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PULSE
  Their largest funded project (EUR 192,437, running to 2020), addressing participatory urban living and sustainability — the broadest and most recent demonstration of their urban health scope.
• City4Age
  An early flagship project on elderly-friendly city services that tackled one of Europe's most pressing demographic challenges, active and healthy ageing, through urban design.