Welcome to Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s innovation centre
where we create better places together and invent tomorrow’s retail
Our innovation strategy
We focus on 3 pillars and 6 innovation priorities
Strengthen desire
- Design appealing mixed-use destinations
- Be the preferred partner for the winning brands of tomorrow
- Ensure seamless customer experiences
Strengthen impact
- Leverage data and digital infrastructure to better interact with customers
- Generate more value from every sqm to meet omnichannel standards
Strengthen agility
- Better manage buildings and reduce our carbon footprint through IoT and Cloud technologies
What is URW LAB?
URW LAB is Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Lab for Innovation.
URW Lab is Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s innovation platform. Launched in 2012, URW Lab organises and accelerates innovation within the Group and ensures that promising ideas receive the dedicated resources they deserve.
URW Lab works closely with internal and external stakeholders—including other Group research departments, large shopping centres and retailers—to monitor trends, identify innovations, test new concepts, and develop implementation plans to ensure the strongest ideas are successfully adopted and rolled out in Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield shopping destinations.
URW Lab’s ambition is to foster the creation of hybrid, sustainable, highly desirable places: Better Places. This vision is embedded in our innovation and “Better Places 2030” CSR strategy. We aim at better understanding macro-trends shaping our environment. We share, communicate and advocate. We strive for open mind, critical thinking and innovation culture throughout the teams. We test, experiment and scale new products, services and solutions in open innovation. We are impact driven: we believe transformation is key for success in today’s world. We dare by being risk takers. We are empowered, sincerely engaged, and we play collective. Innovation is part of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s DNA and will be instrumental to achieve our ambitions.Julie Villet
What is URW LINK?
URW Link is the gateway to work fast with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield on innovation projects.
URW Link is Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s open innovation platform. URW Link identifies and builds innovative partnerships for the Group with start-ups, corporates, retailers, NGOs, and many others. Our purpose is to source externally the most relevant solutions, test them in our shopping centres and, if found relevant, deploy them throughout Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s portfolio.
With URW Link, we have been building strong relationships with our partners for the past six years.
This is how we conceive our collaborations: long-term relationships that enable us to support, help scalable start-ups and initiatives develop and grow faster so as to provide our retailers and customers with innovative and sustainable solutions.Jean Collet
Grand Prix Commerce Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield
Launched by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield in 2007, this competition aims to showcase the creativity and innovative acumen of tomorrow’s retail talents by providing them with the financial and operational support they need to start up their business.
The three 2021 winners
Team
JULIE VILLET
Director of Marketing Strategy and Innovation
JEAN COLLET
URW Link Director
ARTHUR ESCHMANN
URW Lab Strategy Manager
ADHEMAR DU REPAIRE
Analyst
JULIE LEBARBEY
Innovation & Marketing Executive Assistant
MELANIE DALMAS
Communication officer