This article features in the first edition of the Connected Places Magazine

It’s a story that begins and ends with cities as the engines of national growth. According to the World Bank, more than 80% of global GDP is generated in cities. By halfway through this century, three out of four of us will live in cities.

Cities are not just our past, they’re also our future. But we don’t always recognise that.

We know, for example, that cities drive economic and social change thanks to their concentration of people, academic institutions, and access to new technologies and ideas. But traditionally when we think of bilateral innovation and R&D partnerships, we tend to think at the national level.

For instance, countries will agree to cooperate. Missions are held between capital cities, and perhaps a handful of smaller cities are included where possible. That centralised model is now changing. Governments and cities around the world are recognising that economies and place are closely intertwined, and you can’t grow an economy without strong local leadership.

This is why the Catapult has been supporting the governments of the UK and South Korea in breathing life back into the idea of city twinning. It’s doing so using new data models and insights into the unique personality of a city’s innovation economy. And rather like a dating app, it can help match cities anywhere in the world that have complementary governance systems, business climates, and innovation markets.

The UK and South Korea are highly developed, innovation-based economies. The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world, and the third top destination when it comes to private technology investment. Similarly, South Korea is an urbanised, tech-enabled society with a highly skilled workforce. It was ranked by the Bloomberg Innovation Index in 2021 as the most innovative country in the world. This is nothing short of staggering for a former agricultural economy that emerged from civil war in the 1950s.

Both countries also have a strong policy focus on innovation-led growth that creates opportunities across and between regions. For the UK this speaks directly to the Government’s commitment to ensuring the innovation economy is playing its part in levelling up growth right across the country.

The adoption of smart and resilient technologies in cities is also a shared aim for Britain and South Korea. So too is creating new markets for smart city solutions, regeneration projects and urban testbeds. This is why the Catapult is fostering city-to-city relationships. It’s providing UK and South Korean companies new opportunities to collaborate and to remove barriers to market access for small businesses seeking to gain a foothold in their partner cities.

But the unique ingredient is the new intelligence this approach offers. It’s now possible to analyse which British and South Korean cities would twin best with each other.

This is based on a rigorous understanding of:

Because long before the post-war town twinning movement, cities had been trading, exchanging and learning from each other for millennia. Our global economy began with the networks that connect cities. In fact, many of our cities pre-date the nation states in which they are located.

London is certainly older than the UK, or even England. Athens and Rome speak for themselves, and on the Han River near present-day Seoul, a city was first recorded over 2,000 years ago.

Yet Sejong only emerged on the map as a new planned city in 2007.

So perhaps the renaissance of city twinning we’re seeing between the UK and South Korea is as new as it is old – an embrace of the digitally-driven global innovation economy on the one hand, and a rediscovery of a deeper history of urban collaboration on the other.

According to the World Bank, more than 80% of global GDP is generated in cities. By halfway through this century, three out of four of us will live in cities as the world population moves towards 10 billion.

This Playbook is the result of the UK Government commissioning the Catapult to conduct research and provide an overview of how two Indian megacities (Kolkata and Hyderabad) can learn from UK policy interventions in Manchester and London – and vice-versa – on topics such as clean and integrated transport, urban innovation, environmental initiatives, regeneration, and new infrastructure delivery.

It provides an overview of several case studies in these large UK and Indian urban centres and offers a framework for understanding and knowledge exchange between the UK and Indian approaches in planning, implementing and measuring the impact of projects and programmes to support their sustainable development. With a focus on ensuring local company involvement, the analysis also focused on how the two countries’ large cities can leverage and unlock investment with target ecosystems to catalyse innovation and economic activity.The Playbook is ultimately a guide for local authorities and private sector actors in how to move forward with collaborative projects between the UK and Indian counterparts and the launch event in June was the first step towards achieving this goal. The Catapult hosted delegates from Hyderabad and Kolkata’s Municipal commissions and state governments in the UK to foster partnerships for sustainable urban development and bilateral collaboration.

[cpc_image cpc_image_desktop=”4875″ cpc_image_caption=”Delegates present at Connected Places Catapult’s London office”]

The Playbook’s findings are drawn from detailed analysis of policy and project documentation, and in-depth consultations with select stakeholders in the target cities (Manchester, London, Hyderabad and Kolkata). The delegates from India visited the sites highlighted in the report and were able to engage with the developments in practice. Accompanied by Connected Places Catapult staff, partners and UK government representatives, the delegates from Kolkata and Hyderabad visited Kings Cross Redevelopment and learned about the transformation that took place in the past decade in the area. The Kings Cross Visitors Centre showed the delegates an architectural model and provided and overview of the history of the redevelopment. This was followed by a tour of how facilities, including heating and water systems, are being made more energy efficient to tackle climate change.

[cpc_image cpc_image_desktop=”4877″ cpc_image_caption=”Delegates tour the Kings Cross visitor centre”]

The delegates also undertook site visits to the Transport for London (TfL) HQ office where they received an informative presentation from Katherine Howatson, Principal City Planner, on the design and implementation of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) policy, as well as on the Road User Charging scheme also implemented by TfL to address air pollution and traffic congestion. Delegates were especially interested in the technology that has been implemented to track vehicles travelling between zones, and how the technologies and data generated were managed. In Kolkata, for example, police are already using similar technologies to enforce traffic violations.

[cpc_image cpc_image_desktop=”4879″ cpc_image_caption=”Delegates at TfL”][cpc_image cpc_image_desktop=”4880″ cpc_image_caption=”Delegates at The Olympic Park”]

Just around the corner from TfL’s HQ, the delegates were given a tour of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park by Ben Coulter, Head of Sustainability for the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), the publicly-funded body which manages the planning, prior development and current redevelopment of the park. Ben provided an informative tour, and offered candid insights into the sustainability success stories and lessons learnt by LLDC in building the park to net zero specifications. He touched on lessons related to embodied carbon, energy usage and water treatment.In the following leg of the visit, the delegates gained insights from Manchester’s leadership when it comes to catalysing transformation of city and wider-regional economy and creating high-value jobs and accelerating economic growth. The delegates met with Steven Cochrane, Partnership Director at Oxford Road Corridor in Manchester, who shared how stable and mature leadership have been key to building the long-term vision and partnerships in the area. He also highlighted the Manchester digital strategy as testbed for initiatives focused on infrastructure and innovation as well as arts and culture – fundamental to harness creativity across all sectors. Pat Bartoli, Director of City Centre, Growth and Infrastructure at Manchester City Council also joined the meeting.The delegation then had a tour of part of the Oxford Road Development and the University of Manchester’s world-renowned National Graphene Institute led by Prof. Aravind Vijayaraghavan. The academic tours continued with UoM’s state of the art Engineering Campus, the new Engineering Building A, where the delegates were given a tour by Steve Jordan, Assistant Director of Estates and Facilities and Head of Capital Projects, and then a visit to Manchester Metropolitan University’s Fuel Cell Innovation Centre, where they saw hydrogen labs and understood future uses of hydrogen in the city space. Amer Gaffar, Director of Centre led the tour and through his genuine passion, provided an exciting and insightful meeting and tour.

[cpc_image cpc_image_desktop=”4881″ cpc_image_caption=”Delegation tour Oxford Road Partnership in Manchester”][cpc_image cpc_image_desktop=”4882″ cpc_image_caption=”Delegates meet Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham”]

The delegation concluded their tour with a meeting with the Mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Andy Burnham. Their conversation focused on exchanging best practices as well as challenges to policy implementation for green space provision, liveability and more inclusive place making, devolution, diverse funding sources for public projects, housing investment loans, and brownfield development among other topics.The Greater Manchester Combined Authority team will be organising a mayoral visit to India in the coming year, which will provide an excellent opportunity to follow up from the Playbook and the delegation’s UK visit and create exciting trade and investment outcomes to work on for both countries and their cities.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Catapult’s work in India, please get in touch with Roxana Slavcheva at Roxana.Slavcheva@cp.catapult.org.uk

This article features in the first edition of the Connected Places Magazine

By 2050, a quarter of the UK population will be over 65. That compares to less than 15% today. That’s why it’s vital we take an innovative and practical approach to building a future that prioritises physical and mental health as we grow older.

When it comes to healthy ageing, few UK homes are currently up to the challenge of supporting us throughout our lives. The UK has some of the oldest housing stock in Europe – 80% of the homes we’ll be living in by 2050 have already been built. But with the right technologies and innovative care solutions, we can get more from our homes for longer.

Tapping into the right technologies and innovations will mean the UK can:

“One of the things that COVID has taught us is we don’t want to die in a care home. Most people now want to spend the last years of their life in their (own) home. And I think that that’s going to be an enormously important issue.”

Professor Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School and best-selling author

In future, we will need smart homes to keep pace with the innovation around us. As Nigel Walley, Founder & MD of Chimni, puts it: the challenge is “to establish the role of smart homes in the emerging vision for smart, connected cities.” This means homes will need to connect intelligently to utilities and other networked services. But, as Walley points out, “Councils are currently struggling with legacy IT systems and budget constraints, so the private sector is going to have to step in and support them.”

Through the Homes for Healthy Ageing Programme, Connected Places Catapult is harnessing the expertise of industry leaders who can help us make the most of our existing infrastructure through scalable, consumer-friendly technology solutions.

The programme’s work is already underway. Its healthy ageing testbeds are gathering and testing new ideas and solutions in the area
of social isolation and improving cold and
damp homes.

“Wouldn’t it be great to have AI-enabled wheelchairs that can understand and act upon voice commands or eye movement to really enable mobilityu0026lt;br /u0026gt;nfor all?”

Scott Summers, CEO of Fuzzlab,a UK tech company specialising in AI products and services for the housing sector

The artificial intelligence company revolutionising care

Thriving.ai is a digital application that unites all those providing care to an individual – the ‘Thriver’. Using one single platform saves time and money, and improves coordination, communication and quality of care.

As Shainoor Khoja, Founder and CEO, explains, “Caregiving is fragmented, siloed and has been underinvested in. Thriving.ai enables integrated care so everyone is on the same page, and can connect in real time.

“Underpinned by machine learning and artificial intelligence, Thriving.ai delivers intelligent prompts, real-time data insights and more targeted engagement of Thrivers to help address issues of loneliness and isolation.”

Working with Connected Places Catapult has helped Thriving.ai secure opportunities to pilot their solution and generate evidence for whether their app improves an individual’s care. Their help has given Thriving.ai access to inputs on data security in collaboration with the ICO, and the chance to talk to – and design with – care providers.

“The programme has helped us tighten up our hypotheses and ensure we’re designing our pilot as independently as we can. It has specifically helped us meet with decision-makers and gain a deeper understanding of our target market.

“Advances in integrated, connected care technology will continue to deliver greater independence, healthier lifestyles, and lower costs for Thrivers.”

The data scientists predicting cold AND Damp

Bays Consulting, in partnership with Parity projects, runs Prediction to Prescription: a service that applies data science to identify and address cold and damp in homes. They’ve been working with the Catapult to help refine and showcase their idea. The programme has also helped them work on in-house research and development, and a long-term product development plan.

Sophie Carr, Director at Bays Consulting, explains more. “Our service is unique. It predicts the presence of cold and damp at the individual home level. It’s also accessed through a secure cloud-based portal, so different care teams can log in to one solution and use the same evidence to inform their decisions.

Working on the Homes for Healthy Ageing programme has provided great access to a wide range of stakeholders. They’ve also enabled us to link with Connected Places Catapult to develop a clear experimental design plan and access a far wider knowledge base.

“Future homes will need to meet the changing needs of an ageing population – including digital and transport accessibility. Our work with the Homes for Healthy Ageing programme can help make this happen.”

The Grand Challenge

The UK’s ‘ageing society’ is one of the UK government’s four Grand Challenges and its mission is to help people enjoy at least five extra healthy, independent years while narrowing the gap between the experiences of the richest and poorest.

But housing and health have until now been treated as two very different and disconnected worlds, which poses an opportunity for innovators and entrepreneurs in both the housing and the healthy living industries to introduce new technology and care solutions.

Do you have a solution to making our homes better suited to people as they age? The next round of our Homes for Healthy Ageing programme is currently accepting applications. 

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

This article features in the first edition of the Connected Places Magazine

For the benefits of innovation to be shared by all, we need a vision for what inclusive innovation looks like. So, the Research Commission on Inclusive Innovation is working with local leaders and innovation hubs across the country to get under the skin of some of these questions.

Levelling up the UK through inclusive innovation

What inclusive innovation will look like in individual UK towns and cities is beginning to become clear. But for more context on the wider remit of the commission, we spoke to Emma Frost, Chair of the UK Innovation Districts Group, which is leading on the Commission.

“Innovative, fast-growing firms account for less than 1% of UK companies, yet add £1 trillion to the UK economy. So what more can they deliver as they grow? And how is this best achieved and enabled?

“We need to understand the complicated dynamics at play, and what the link is between inclusive innovation and inclusive growth. This commission is aimed at doing exactly that.” Crucial, according to Frost, is hearing from those “in the thick of it.”

“We need to learn together and faster to avoid repeating the same mistakes or missed opportunities. We need it now to help inform policy and delivery as we respond to post pandemic, post Brexit and wider global economic forces. Put simply, we need to shake up who gets to innovate, on what and who benefits from it.”

Frost’s advice on the most important challenges facing all place leaders comes in four parts:

Get the basics right with respect to good growth

“We need a fast-growing innovation economy that pays real attention to fair employment practices, early and sustained education programmes, and diligent assessment of supply chains and added value.”

Focus innovation activity on societal challenges

“Encourage mission-led innovation and grand challenges everyone can get behind. Activate and strengthen partnerships between public, private, community and academic sectors – and be clear on the value each player adds. Bring people with you. Innovation districts can be agents of change but only if they’re able to connect people and purpose to build a coalition of the willing.”

Recognise that innovation districts often develop in areas of huge change, adjacent to areas with real socio-economic challenges

“Place leaders need to be aware of their role in the change. There are always inherent sensitivities and trade-offs. Monitor impacts and outcomes, good and bad. Track what’s happening, to whom, and respond.”

Inclusive innovation requires intentionality

“Trickle-down economics doesn’t deliver enough. True inclusive innovation requires us to rewire the value chains, existing systems and ways of working. Innovation districts offer a way to push forward this sort of transformation in a place-based way. But it doesn’t happen by accident. It has to be planned, prioritised and pushed every step of the way.”

So, what do places of innovation stand to gain? As Frost puts it: “If we get this right, places of innovation can future-proof themselves for the fourth industrial revolution – able to be part of it rather than reeling from it. They can also, hopefully, pave the way for a more sustainable and equitable innovation economy.”

Inclusive innovation hubs across the UK

Bradford

Targeting under-served communities

Bradford’s Impact Hub is a social innovation hub and co-working space with collaboration and co-design at its heart. To target Bradford’s under-served communities – women, young people and people of colour – Impact Hub Bradford has aligned itself with the city’s economic strategy.

Chief Creative Officer, Imran Ali, summarises the hub’s approach:

“We believe diversity brings better outcomes to all entrepreneurial endeavours, but is absolutely vital to those pursuing social impact.”So how much impact is the Impact Hub having? We can point to a number of examples.

“Our two-day programme, The 35, brought together minority leaders from across the city for a series of workshops on common challenges. The cohort found mutual support in each other’s journeys, and strategies for building resilience into their work.

“Our 2019 edition of TEDxBradford was a day-long event connected by the theme ‘Radically Social’. Half the contributors were women and over a third were people of colour. This diverse representation helped attract over 300 attendees notably, as the audience could see themselves and their issues represented on stage.

“Finally, our SUSTAIN programme was a six-month series of masterclasses, workshops and individual coaching for social impact organisations challenged by the impact of COVID-19. SUSTAIN was developed in collaboration with PwC Foundation.”

Ali believes the Impact Hub’s ability to listen has been key to their successes.

“Think of compassion and empathy as core design materials. Use them to create products and services that matter. Inclusivity through co-design will ensure your communities feel ownership and agency over what you’re doing.”

Birmingham

Inclusivity through collaboration

Based in Birmingham, Digital Innovators facilitates collaboration between young people and businesses to unlock the potential of the next generation of innovators. In partnership with Greater Birmingham, Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership and Bruntwood SciTech, they recently launched The Ideator, a collaborative work environment on the Innovation Birmingham Campus.

This pilot programme establishes an incubator and development process for businesses to develop the ideas formed within the programme, with the intention of employing the young people who have created them.

As Mick Westman, Digital Innovators founder, explains,

“We believe everyone has the potential to succeed. We do not have entry requirements for students on our programmes. We do not look at grades or previous experience. All we ask is for participants to be eager to learn.”

For Mick, making innovation more inclusive is all about collaboration: “Collaboration is at the heart of what we do. Without our partnerships, our impact on a diverse pool of young people would not be as significant as it is today.”

Mick’s advice for more inclusive innovation? “Ask yourself, what are others doing which you could be doing better? How can you work together to increase inclusivity? What would this collaboration look like? The answers will help you identify the steps necessary to improve inclusivity through collaboration.”

Glasgow

Building community partnerships

The Glasgow Riverside Innovation District (GRID) works closely with community leaders and groups to understand the needs and ambitions of its communities. It’s a partnership between the University of Glasgow, Scottish Enterprise and Glasgow City Council, founded to drive inclusive innovation in the local community.

As a result of a partnership with InTo University they have located staff into community owned assets, which achieves a number of goals. GRID Director Benny McLaughlin explains: “Firstly, it creates economic activity within the community with associated spend and engagement. Secondly, it recycles rental income from tenancy agreements back into the community.

“And, as a result of situating some of our team in the community, we have engaged over 1,000 local school children in mentoring and educational activities.”

So where next for the GRID partnership? McLaughlin sees the work of the partnership as part of a wider contribution to the economic and social commitment across Glasgow: “The civic ambition of the partners is to ensure that where GRID has activity planned, the communities where that activity takes place are recognised and benefit from our presence.”

“My key advice to others trying to make places of innovation more inclusive is to listen to the community at all stages of interaction. This may elongate the delivery of initiatives but will help gain trust and support for the long term.”

The Research Commission on Inclusive Innovation has conducted a national study, looking into ten innovation districts across the UK to better understand what’s being done to address the challenges of delivering inclusive innovation and inclusive growth in those areas. You can now read the latest findings here. 

The political aim of Net Zero has been defined. Yet, the challenge remains in delivering the most appropriate and workable local-level actions.

To meet this challenge, we believe that innovation and better use of data are key to achieving a place-based approach. This will engage users across sectors, communities, and asset owners.

Three critical emission sectors not to be thought of separately are transport, energy supply and the built environment. This is due to their interdependencies and impact on Net Zero. Yet, these sectors continue to be planned for, delivered and funded in silos.

Today we see a fragmented, slow-paced place planning system. Our report calls for a fundamental change in the way we plan, design and manage our places to meet Net Zero.

We developed our recommendations by engaging over 20 organisations across sectors. Our report identifies cross-sectoral barriers that currently hinder more integrated approaches. It also addresses key opportunities for change going forward.

We looked at real-world impacts of realising these opportunities. We partnered with Future of London to develop 6 case studies of places that have started to take a more integrated approach to Net Zero planning. These case studies highlight different approaches and lessons learnt, which range from Local Area Energy Planning in Manchester to the transformation of a former Power Station in Rugeley.

We’ve also shown how data and technology can promote collaboration and unlock Net Zero action. We partnered with TPXimpact and Open Innovations to develop two prototypes. They explore two cross-sector challenges that will create new markets and reduce dependency on local authorities:

a. EV Bulk Charging Planner

A data-led prototype that pulls together key information for local authorities to plan their EV strategy. It also identifies the best locations for rolling out bulk charging infrastructure for fleets. Examples include taxi rankings, ambulances and commercial deliveries.

Try it out here

b. Community Retrofit Service

A prototype of a service that helps the homeowner market estimate the carbon impact of their home, by allowing them to :

• Access retrofit options,
• connect with peers,
• access supply chains and grants and
• check the impact of their retrofit.

Try it out here

NB. These are prototypes of tools – they are for demonstration purposes and not for active use. 

All this work has led to our vision and roadmap for the future of integrated planning.

Through better harnessing data and developing coordinated, user-led services, we believe that the actions in our roadmap are essential to creating a future where integrated planning becomes the norm and drives collective, place-based Net Zero action.

We hope that our findings and prototypes will spark a conversation and we’d love to hear any feedback.

If you’d like to work with us or find out more, please get in touch with Katie Adnams, Place Innovation Lead at katie.adnams@cp.catapult.org.uk

We held a webinar to launch our findings and hear from practitioners working in transport, energy and data to understand their challenges and approaches to Net Zero planning. Watch it here

Play