Welcome to Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s innovation centre
where we create better places together and invent tomorrow’s retail
Our innovation strategy
To create the urban places of tomorrow, URW Lab’s strategy relies on three pillars.
We focus on 3 pillars and 6 innovation priorities
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 in Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield shopping centers across Europe.
At Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, our mission is not only to create value for our visitors and shareholders today, but also to invent the places and experiences for shopping and working of tomorrow. In a complex world, where every company’s business model is evolving fast or is even disrupted, where many aspects of our lives are changing at an incredibly fast pace, the URW teams have to understand what is going on around them, envision long-term trends and develop innovative products and services.
This is why innovation must be at the heart of our day-to-day work life. Why we encourage our teams to be more collaborative and creative, in order to imagine solutions together. Why we are empowered to dare until we get it right and have an impact.Christophe Cuvillier
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, corporate, retailers, NGOs, and many others.
Our purpose is to source externally the most relevant solutions, test them concretely in our shopping centres and, if found relevant, deploy them throughout Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s portfolio.
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 four 2019 winners
Team
JULIE VILLET
URW Lab and CSR Director
JEAN COLLET
URW Link Director
ARTHUR ESCHMANN
URW Lab Strategy Manager
MELANIE DALMAS
Communication officer
JULIE LEBARBEY
Mixer Executive Assistant
The Mixer
Innovation center
The Mixer is where innovation happens.
Discover our 900m² located in Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s headquarters in Paris, where startups and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s employees work together to invent tomorrow’s retail.
