Leresti Living Lab

Lerești Living Lab is a rural innovation ecosystem founded in 2023 and based in Lerești, Romania, dedicated to co-creating community-driven solutions for primary prevention and health promotion. Coordinated by the Centre for Innovation in Medicine (INOMED), the Living Lab brings together citizens, local authorities, schools, sports organizations, healthcare professionals, and researchers in a long-term partnership grounded in trust and shared learning. At its core, the Living Lab adopts a participatory approach that combines community interventions with network science, enabling a deeper understanding of how health behaviours are shaped by social relationships and everyday contexts. Through iterative waves of face-to-face interviews, walking football tournaments, and local art gallery exhibitions, residents actively contribute to shaping research tools, interventions, and priorities. Beyond Lerești, our Living Lab approach is being extended to other contexts, with full replication underway in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, through the 4P-CAN project, and context-sensitive replication across eight European countries through the MAYA project.

Areas of work:

• AI & Emerging Technologies;Culture
• Culture and Creativity (Creative Sectors)
• Education and/or Vocational Training
• Environment/Climate Change
• Gender
• Health and Well Being
• Rural