Rural Living Labs

Northern Sweden’s Rural Digital Service Ecosystem offers villages, micro-enterprises, associations and support organisations a shared regional environment for developing, testing, accessing and managing digital services adapted to rural conditions.

The ecosystem provides access to Living Lab environments, digital infrastructure and expertise, local and regional support networks, knowledge exchange, and opportunities to co-create and test digital solutions in real-life village settings. It connects local needs with technology providers, researchers, municipalities and other public and private actors that can contribute expertise, services and resources.

For villages and local organisations, the ecosystem strengthens the capacity to identify digital needs, choose appropriate solutions and organise their long-term use and management. For companies and technology providers, it provides access to rural Living Lab environments where solutions can be developed, tested and validated together with users. For municipalities, researchers and support organisations, it provides a structured collaboration arena for sharing knowledge, coordinating resources and developing scalable approaches to rural digitalisation.The concrete offer is therefore a combination of access, support and collaboration: access to a regional network and real-life Living Labs environments; support for developing, adopting and managing digital services; and a collaborative structure that connects local demand with relevant expertise, technology and resources.The overall purpose is to make rural communities active partners in digital transformation rather than passive recipients of solutions, while creating opportunities for companies, public actors and researchers to develop digital services that are relevant, resilient and sustainable in rural contexts.