The IPL newsletter: Volume 19, Issue 378

How G7 Nations Can Support and Prepare for the Next Technology Wave

Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF
In a report prepared for the Canadian government for the G7 Ministerial on Innovation and Employment, ITIF discusses how the coming technology wave is a progressive force G7 nations should embrace. The report describes the key technologies, how policies should support their development and adoption, how the technologies may impact employment and finally, how G7 nations should work to ensure successful labor market outcomes for their workforces.

Global State of National Urban Policy

OECD
With two thirds of the world’s population projected to live in urban areas by the middle of this century, the accelerating pace of urbanisation generates crucial opportunities and challenges for sustainable development that reach far beyond city boundaries. Many global processes have recognised the importance of urbanisation as well as the roles and responsibilities of national governments vis-à-vis other urban stakeholders. For instance, urban issues are well articulated in the Agenda 2030, the New Urban Agenda and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Global State of National Urban Policy is a first attempt to assess the status of national urban policy development in 150 countries. In the report you will understand why, how and in what forms NUPs have been developed,implemented and monitored globally. The report sets a solid foundation for a common methodology to monitor the progress of NUPs at the global level. Further, it outlines how many countries have an explicit NUP, the focus of the policy in each country, the existence or not of a dedicated urban agency or department, and the capacity available for effective policy making. The report is also a significant contribution to the monitoring and implementation of the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. In it, policy makers, practitioners and academia will find valuable resources and comparisons to inspire more evidence-based urban policy making for sustainable urban development.

Research and Policy INsights: Digital Divide in the U.S.

Roberto Gallardo, Lionel J. Beaulieu, and Indraneel Kumar, Purdue Center for Regional Development
The digital divide is a complex issue. This report attempts to define and measure the digital divide in the U.S. and seeks to understand its impact on demographics, jobs, and establishment profiles of urban and rural counties. This report attempts to measure the digital divide with an innovative measure called the Digital Divide Index (DDI). The DDI examines the impact on demographics, jobs, and establishment trends of the U.S. The DDI is a descriptive and pragmatic tool, designed to promote awareness and more importantly, jumpstart critical discussions of ways to address the issues it raises.

OECD Territorial Reviews: The Megaregion of Western Scandinavia 2018

OECD
In an increasingly globalized world, cities and regions sometimes join forces with their neighbours to form “megaregions” and tap economies of scale. This report discusses how eight cities and counties in Norway and Sweden – along the coast joining up Oslo, Gothenburg and Malmö – have decided to work closer together as the megaregion of “Western Scandinavia”. With a total population of about 5 million inhabitants, this cross-border territory shows good potential to draw on its growing economic and cultural interlinkages, as well as its long history of institutional collaboration, to build a stronger, more sustainable and more inclusive megaregion. The report encourages local authorities to identify a common vision for their shared future development and to take concrete action towards implementing it. It also calls for national governments to tackle the challenges of cross-border transport planning to facilitate greener mobility and more inclusive labour markets.

Making Sense of the Global Urban

John Harrison and Michael Hoyler
For all of the talk surrounding the move towards more globally oriented urban studies there has been a notable silence regarding the practice of doing global urban research. Attaching the prefix ‘global’ to established theories and processes is an easy, often neat, conceptual move, yet translating this into the practice of actually doing urban research presents many more challenges. Indeed, if you are reading these words then it is a challenge that you are most likely facing. The problem as the authors see it is that the practice of doing global urban research is often implied, lurking in the background, or largely hidden from view. This is the point of departure for the book of which this is the introductory chapter. It aims to put the practice of doing global urban research centre stage.

Smart City Demonstrators: A Global Review of Challenges and Lessons Learned

Catapult Future Cities
As part of the Hyper-Connected Data Rich City project, this White Paper outlines best practices and lessons learned for demonstrator projects. Showing readers the best ways of capturing value from public and private investment to inform the next generation of projects. City-based test beds aim to de-risk the development and scaling-up of solutions and services that are not yet ready for the mainstream market by providing safe environments for experimentation and innovation. The project has identified prominent large-scale smart city demonstrators both within the UK and internationally. These demonstrators fall into the following market verticals: city services, smart utilities, smart healthcare, connected and autonomous vehicles, last mile supply chain and logistics, and next-generation connectivity and data. Using this research as a base, the initiative selected a subset of demonstrators and test beds and conducted 40 in-depth interviews with representatives and industry experts to uncover challenges, lessons learned and best practice.

Challenges and lessons learned fell into four main categories:

Engagement and access to assets

• Local authority capacity and engagement: Many large-scale demonstrators cannot happen without the cooperation and participation of local authorities due to the powers they hold and the assets they own. A small number of authorities are actively putting themselves forward as demonstration ‘sandpits’ in order to attract inward investment. While it is often inferred that authorities do not have the capacity or skills to effectively participate in large-scale innovation programs, this research shows that authorities often make valuable contributions to these initiatives, drawing on their strong stakeholder and project management skills.
• Access to assets: The successful implementation of many smart city demonstrators depends, in part, on access to physical infrastructure and data assets. The ownership of assets at a city level is not straightforward, with private property rights, privatization of critical infrastructure and outsourcing of city services inhibiting the execution of integrated programs. Demonstrators recommended selecting demonstrator locations based on the appetite for innovation of various asset owners, involving owners at the outset of demonstrator planning and using standardized agreements when seeking to deploy equipment onto physical assets.
• User research and engagement: A major barrier to the success of smart city demonstrators is the lack of engagement, understanding and trust of people who are expected to be the end users of demonstrated solutions. This research uncovered a growing trend among demonstrators to prioritize user research and engagement, utilizing approaches such as co-design workshops, innovation clubs and crowdfunding platforms to select and shape the projects undertaken. They experienced difficulties in enabling small businesses to engage with emerging technologies that have long maturity horizons.

Finance, Governance and Intellectual Property (IP)

The finance, governance and intellectual property arrangements surrounding smart city demonstrators are intrinsically linked and vary considerably depending on the funding sources, partners involved and use-case area.

• Funding and Finance: Funding for demonstrators came from a number of public and private sources. Common public sources in the UK included central government departments and agencies such as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Department for Transport, the Department for Health, and Innovate UK. Local enterprise partnerships, research councils and various higher education institutional funds also contributed. In Europe, the European Commission was the predominant funder of smart city demonstrators through their Horizon 2020 and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) avenues. International demonstrators also received considerable support from central and city governments. Universally, public-sector support was typically augmented by private-sector funding in the form of in-kind or material contributions. Rarely was the private sector seen to initiate large-scale smart city demonstrators; when used, this model was almost exclusively seen in North America. Tellingly, very few test bed environments were self-sustaining, with the vast majority relying on continued grant funding to maintain operations.
• Governance and Delivery Models: Large demonstration projects, particularly those funded by the European Commission and the UK government, typically used collaboration agreements to create delivery consortia comprising public, private and academic organisations. Test bed environments used special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to enable the participating organisations to achieve their joint objectives. Public-sector organisations said that this allowed for swifter decision making capabilities and shorter procurement timescales, while private sector organisations believed that the use of SPVs offered a degree of protection from potential reputation risks. The various participants in smart city projects and test beds reported challenges in learning to work under these new, multiagency partnership models, citing cultural differences, resistance to change and little shared history of working together as key contributing factors.
• IP Development and Management: Within collaborative demonstration projects, background IP arrangements were standardized, with the party that brought the IP into the consortium retaining full ownership. Foreground IP arrangements became more complex and difficult to agree on as the number of partners increased. Collaboration agreements were the most common way of formalizing these arrangements between multiple partners. Projects unanimously reported that these agreements took considerably longer than expected to put in place, with legal negotiations typically lasting between six months and one year. The most common sticking points were intellectual property rights and liabilities.

Delivery Capabilities and Skills

This research briefly touched upon the skills and capabilities required to deliver large-scale demonstrators. Many of the findings were expected, with project management skills, stakeholder management capabilities, relevant technical skills and legal and financial support all considered critical. Change management was cited as a capability that many demonstrators had not initially prioritized but became crucial as the projects progressed. This support was required to effectively land changes and ensure that they were sustained across all members of the affected ecosystem. Interviewees stressed the importance of partner selection, allowing time for delivery partners to create effective ways of working, and ensuring staff continuity between project phases as key factors in the overall success of demonstrators.

Impact Measurement and Scaling

• Measuring impact and success: Measuring the impact of demonstration projects and test beds is critical to proving value, evidencing business cases and ultimately creating new markets. This analysis found that in the majority of demonstrators, impact measurement activities were conducted by universities, as they had experience of measuring the impact of new and innovative ideas. There were difficulties in measuring long-term impacts and dealing with the frequently changing nature of innovation projects. Baselines set at the beginning of projects were often not suitable for impact measurement purposes by the end. To combat this, demonstrators recommended using a logic model approach to tie activities to outcomes. There were also concerns around too much focus on evaluation and assessment stifling innovation and putting a premature stop to demonstrators.
• Scaling to new markets: It is critical for companies to be able to develop and test products and services that can scale to a larger market. Several approaches have been used to scale solutions proven in demonstrators, including expansion of the demonstrator area, operational rollout of the product or services and replication to other locations.

Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think will find it of value. We look forward to collaborating with you on this initiative. If you would like to comment on, or contribute to, the content, subscribe or unsubscribe, please contact us at ipl.munkschool@utoronto.ca.

This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.