The overarching challenge addressed by the Aleksotas pilot seeks to leverage temporary uses to drive the development of the Aleksotas Innovation Industry Park as an integrated piece of the city.

The area is currently a ‘blank’ space with poor facilities, amenities and basic services. The development aims to create a lively and innovative ecosystem for research and new enterprises in highly specialised fields, which in turn will require proper conditions for attracting and anchoring a multiplicity of actors on site. At the same time, there is the need of re-creating a new identity for the area, involving different communities in the co-development of new meanings and urban functions, and  leveraging existing cultural assets such as the Kaunass Fortress, adjacent to the area.

Active involvement of the local communities in placemaking is also a key aspect of the challenge, vis-à-vis a general culture of participation and civic engagement in the city that needs to be supported and empowered with new spaces for dialogue, collaboration and mediation of interests and needs. In this respect, the adoption of temporary uses in Kaunas also has the ambition to work as a policy and regulatory ‘demonstrator’, becoming an experiment that could be eventually scaled up across other redevelopments in the city and more broadly in Lithuania.

Three innovation missions set the ground for the meanwhile strategy of the pilot:

1. Mission 1: Collaborative, Creative & Community-led Meanwhile: The main focus of this mission is to create collaborative and creative communities around the AIIP, who can co-develop a variety of meanwhile uses, giving the chance to local stakeholders to create a community of practice on innovative city making methods.
2. Mission 2: People and Planet-centre d Innovation Ecosystem: With an emphasis on technology, health, and sustainability, this mission strives to create a favourable environment for the growth of a vibrant network of research communities, start-ups, and businesses in industries including biotech, biofood, and medtech. The area can become a place where cultural, business and tech-related actors start engaging with each other, disseminating, and promoting knowledge exchange on life sciences and green tech.
3. Mission 3: Short Distance and Multi-Function Place: This mission intends to foster the development of new services and amenities on the site that can enhance the liveability while beginning to change perceptions of isolation and remoteness. The aim of this mission is to set the basis to increase, on a longer run, the liveability and attractiveness of the area.