Tecnun-School of Engineering will host, together with Mubil, MIT's 'City Science Lab Gipuzkoa' innovation laboratory.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab has signed an agreement with the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa for the creation of the City Science Lab Gipuzkoa, a new innovation laboratory that will work on projects to improve mobility. The signing has taken place thanks to the academic collaboration that Tecnun, the School of Engineering of the University of Navarra, MIT and the New Mobility Center of Gipuzkoa (Mubil) have maintained for years. The School of Engineering of the University of Navarra will actively participate in the projects and will host, together with Mubil, the new innovation laboratory.

The MIT Cambridge campus hosted the signing of the agreement in which the Deputy of Economic Promotion and Strategic Projects, Jabier Larrañaga, the director of Mubil, Ane Insausti and the director of MIT City Science, Kent Larson, participated. The representation of the territory of Gipuzkoa has been completed by the director of Innovation, Jon Gurrutxaga, and the director of Tecnun- Engineering School of the University of Navarra, Raul Anton .

It should be noted that the agreement means the entry of Gipuzkoa into the 'City Science Network': the exclusive collaborative network of cities around the world, sponsored by MIT, which includes Shanghai, Helsinki, Toronto, Taipei, Hamburg, Guadalajara (Mexico), Andorra, Ho Chi Minh City and Concepción (Chile).

The 'City Science Network' proposes a unique working methodology, which is based on research laboratories of reference cities around the world to respond to the challenges of citizenship and contribute to the advancement towards a new model of city or region. Within the framework of the initiative, these cities, integrated into an international network of cooperative laboratories, work together with the MIT Media Lab in the development of research that leads to the development of key concepts and technologies that are implemented and evaluated in real environments, with experimentation at the core.

Integration in this network will allow Gipuzkoa to access the research, knowledge and technological capabilities of MIT, including 'CityScope', a 3D augmented reality platform that visualizes complex urban data in a small-scale model of the territory in real time.

On the other hand, the agreement, which has a financial endowment of 1.2 million euros and a 3-year renewable term at its conclusion, will be a great boost to development and research in this field for Gipuzkoa and the Basque Country, testing innovative solutions in real environments.

City Science Lab Gipuzkoa

The new laboratory, called "City Science Lab Gipuzkoa", is focused on promoting the transition towards a new model that responds to the needs of the citizens of the different regions of Gipuzkoa and contributes to improving their quality of life and well-being.

It should be noted that the relationship between the MIT Media Lab and Gipuzkoa goes back a long time. Tecnun Gipuzkoa, which has had an academic relationship with MIT for many years, facilitated the participation of MIT Media Lab members in a conference on mobility in April last year. As a result, the MIT Media Lab observed in Gipuzkoa the potential to become part of its international network: strong R&D capabilities, a vocation for innovation and experimentation driven from the public sphere and closely linked to the private sector, and an increasing presence of electric or hybrid vehicles among the transport fleets.