Translating research through the National University of Singapore campus as a living laboratory

Campus as a Living Lab at the National University of Singapore is an initiative to bridge technologies from academia to industry across the valley of death ^[1]. The valley of death is the gap between research & development and translation & commercialization where many favorable innovations disappear. It poses significant challenges for academics, researchers, developers, and startups. If carefully resourced and shepherded, it will see real-world deployment for commercially viable products or services from academic laboratories. The university has put forth its campus grounds, infrastructure, and equipment to support this. The university has also developed its digital twin to assess each project's feasibility, which will be test bedding technologies under the living lab framework. This paper will discuss in detail the digital twin, evaluation criteria, validation processes, and the two ongoing projects. It also will describe how the digital twin was accurately modeled and created, as well as how it was used to assist in the feasibility studies of each project. To cross the valley of death, the university has established the strategies and partnership framework to successfully bring research-driven innovations into impactful market-ready technologies and capabilities. We will invite more companies to adopt academic research for real-world deployment.