The I3-Lab at Imperial College London, co-funded by the IOTA Foundation, has officially launched, focusing on circular economy research through digital tools. The lab aims to innovate sustainable business models and technologies to decouple economic growth from resource consumption, according to the IOTA Foundation Blog.
Launch of I3-Lab at Imperial College London
The I3-Lab, short for Imperial IOTA Infrastructure Lab, is a state-of-the-art research facility that received a £1 million donation from the IOTA Foundation. Additional funding was provided by Imperial College and grant support from UK Research and Innovation and the European Union. The lab is hosted at iCUBE, a dedicated space for pioneering sustainability research.
Empowering the Circular Economy
The I3-Lab focuses on developing digital instruments to empower the circular economy. Traditional business models link resource consumption to economic growth, leading to unsustainable practices. The circular economy aims to break this link by promoting sustainability through reuse and recycling. IOTA’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) is already being utilized in projects like the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP) and Digital Product Passports.
More About I3-Lab
A unique aspect of the I3-Lab is its focus on new ownership and business models based on servitization. These models facilitate sharing and on-demand access to goods, services, and materials, moving away from conventional sole ownership. The lab has already secured grants for projects like Autofair, iCircular3, and CoDiet. The I3-Lab team includes five PhD students and several senior researchers, aiming for a total team of around 25 people. The lab is housed in a meticulously restored Victorian building, adding historic charm to the cutting-edge research facility.
The Foundation’s Applied Research Team, led by Dr. William Sanders, IOTA’s Director of Applied Research, will collaborate with the projects involved with the Lab. Dr. Sanders is also a visiting researcher at the Lab.
IOTA and Imperial
The I3-Lab is the latest development in the ongoing collaboration between the IOTA Foundation and Imperial College London. Previously, IOTA funded grant work for Imperial’s Professor Robert Shorten, and Dr. Pietro Ferraro, now part of the IOTA team, contributed to this grant as a postdoc, working on the IOTA Congestion Control algorithm and co-authoring several publications on IOTA.
The I3-Lab is expected to set the stage for new approaches to sustainability and the circular economy. The research findings will be published as they become available.
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