About the Smart City Innovation Lab at Católica-Lisbon
The Smart City Innovation Lab (SCIL), is a multi-disciplinary research group at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics (Portugal). SCIL’s mission is to empower businesses to create wellbeing in urban areas via digital technologies, novel business models and sustainable values. The research of the group focuses on business models, entrepreneurial strategy, and digital innovation. SCIL consults companies on strategic issues related to business modelling and digitization. SCIL collaborates with 50+ companies across Europe and has ongoing research projects with leading universities around the world (e.g. MIT, St.Gallen, Manchester). The lab is lead partner in two European H2020 projects and hosts the online platform www.smartbusinessmodeler.com. SCIL was founded by René Bohnsack, PhD, Professor for Strategy and Innovation at Católica-Lisbon.
GRONEN Conference 2020
In June, SCIL hosted the fully virtual GRONEN2020 conference.
Bringing together over 100 sustainability researchers from all over the world, the conference was a first of its kind!
GRONEN2020 ran on the platform www.ichair.org
The virtual conference has been discussed as a milestone for making academic conferences more climate-friendly and inclusive. It was even picked up by the career column of nature.
We are proud to help to pioneer new formats of academic exchange!
Recent News
SCIL’s Carbon Footprint Challenge as Finalist in Innovation Competition
On July 15, Henriette Närger and René Bohnsack presented the Carbon Footprint Challenge as finalists of the 'Innovationspreis der Landeshauptstadt München'. The Carbon Footprint Challenge is a gamified survey application to motivate and teach
Looking back at GRONEN2020
That was GRONEN2020: Some Facts & Figures 113 participants, 52 synchronous paper presentations, 58 hours live-stream, and 8 virtual bars and socials - that was GRONEN2020!! A quick calculation shows that we
Student Challenge: What does Sustainability in the Digital Age Mean to You?
Are you passionate about sustainability, the role of digital technologies for making our cities smarter, or keen on debating new trends in the circular and shared economy? As part of the GRONEN Conference 2020, the
Tips and Tricks for Hosting Great Virtual Academic Conferences
In our last article, we compiled seven tips and tricks to give online presentations. Currently, the Smart City Innovation Lab is in the process of organising the GRONEN conference, which will be fully virtual. What started as a pilot
All Things Virtual! 7 Tips for Online Presentations
In the light of COVID-19, companies and academic institutions face the challenge of keeping daily business, teaching and research events going. We at the Smart City Innovation Lab believe, the conversation must go on! Thanks
Accelerating Disruption: How to Design Value Propositions for Sustainable Technologies
New-to-the-world sustainable technologies often suffer from slow adoption in the market. Think, for instance, about electric cars which are often said to disrupt the market, yet they are (still) only adopted at a slow
Projects
The Integrated Smart GRID Cross-Functional Solutions for Optimized Synergetic Energy Distribution, Utilization Storage Technologies (inteGRIDy) aims to integrate cutting-edge technologies, solutions and mechanisms in a scalable cross-functional platform connecting energy networks with diverse stakeholders, facilitating optimal and dynamic operation of the Distribution Grid (DG), fostering the stability and coordination of distributed energy resources and enabling collaborative storage schemes within an increasing share of renewables.
inteGRIDy tackles the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as the need for synergy to speed up the development process, and thus market introduction of novel digital services in the energy industry.
The Consortium, which the Smart City Innovation Lab is part of, comprises 30 partners. SCIL is responsible for the business modelling toolsets.
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Venturely (previously Smart Business Modeler) is an award-winning business modeling and venture creation platform that is empowering anyone to develop their business ideas to the pitch-stage. Venturely has been built on state-of-the-art research about business modeling, entrepreneurship, and innovation, allowing the user to be innovative and to work within a team environment while considering the foundations of sound business modeling and venture creation.
Venturely was created due to the lack of methodological tools for digital transformation, sustainable, and smart city business model as well as of expert guidance through the business modeling process in the online domain.
Venturely is a project developed solely by the Smart City Innovation Lab.
The project me² represents a new market place for urban actors in which a local community of electric vehicle (EV) users and local smart meter (SM) owners are brought together through means of a local urban online community. The combination of these technologies in a community allows to integrate mobility with electricity, to balance the grid, to reduce electricity costs, and to enable a feeling of local belonging. me2 enables urban demand-side management, i.e. aims to modify consumer demand for energy such as using less energy during peak hours in an urban community. The project is validated and optimized in two pilots in urban communities in Amsterdam and Lisbon.
The project was created due to the high consumption of energy produced from non-renewable sources, not enough grid capacity and the high demand of electricity in the peak hours.
The project ended in May 2018 and the Smart City Innovation Lab contributed on business models, policy-strategy interplay and consumer behavior in the fields of mobility and energy.
The DTx Digital Transformation CoLab aims to address the new paradigms in products, services, and human machine interface and the consequent changes in industry and society, fostering collaborative research and technological development between multidisciplinary academic knowledge and a wide range of industrial competences. DTx projects will address digitalization in product design, systems development and manufacturing solutions, and will be selected according to the CoLab technological roadmaps and the partners challenges.
The DTx CoLab is a non-profit organization with 18 participating entities, including three universities and 13 companies. SCIL will mainly contribute with knowledge on Business Models applied to the prospective projects.
DIANA – Digital Intelligent Assistant for Nursing Applications supports caregivers while improving the life and safety of the elderly and impaired by providing novel solutions for action and behavior recognition using AI-powered 3D sensors. It will provide assistance in numerous complex tasks such as monitoring the safety of patients 24/7, controlling walks at night, responding to alarms from existing sensors, supporting activities of daily living, monitoring health trends of patients, and visualizing this data.
In addition, this project addresses specifically the toilet, where hardly any supporting technologies exist. The visit to a toilet is part of the daily routine and takes a high amount of nursing time. DIANA has the unique goal of increasing people’s autonomy and digitizing the help of nurses. This will have immediate positive consequences on job performance as well as raise the efficiency of an estimated 30%. The DIANA project builds on years of research by the consortium, which the Smart City Innovation Lab is part of.
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The ergoscan analyses postures directly at the workplace, gives feedback and coaches a healthy sitting behaviour through the combination of sensors and data analytics. To improve the sitting behaviour of workers, the concept comprises a five-day posture analysis at the workplace, an individual posture report, and online coaching to build and apply the knowledge.
This innovative concept from the analysis to tailor-made exercises and tips for correcting unhealthy postures wants to ensure a lasting change in behaviour.
The ergoscan was developed by the German startup Fitbase because 80% of German workers suffer from back pain, usually caused by unilateral postures. The Smart City Innovation Lab is testing the technology over several months to provide feedback.
Publications
Selected Partners
Researchers
Resources
We want to share our knowledge with you and therefore make case studies, worksheets and reports available.
Learn more about our resources here!
Services
We consult companies, start-ups and organizations, offer workshops as well as business model design with the Smart Business Modeler in the areas
- Business Modeling,
- Digital Transformation,
- Smart Cities.
Learn more here!

Contact

We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Smart City Innovation Lab
Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics
Palma de Cima, Travessa de Cima dos Quartéis, 1649-023 Lisboa
info@smartcityinnovationlab.com