Creating an innovation network

Filip MeurisIntercommunale Leiedal

Smart Cities Project Director

Smart CitiesSmart Cities is an innovation network between 15 government and academic partners in the North Sea Region. It will:1.develop an understanding of which e-services services work best and why, 2.equip decision makers with knowledge to develop and deliver e-enabled public services, 3.facilitate the transfer of e-Government successes, 4.integrate national authorities into these efforts.

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15 municipal and academic partners from across the NSR

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A wide range of mainstreaming partners

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What is a ‘Smart City’?

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There is no single accepted definition of a ‘Smart City’ – but most rely on the use of technology and evidence to improve cities/services etc..

What is e-government?

e-government covers many different institutions, at different levels of government and at different stages of organisational/ technological development, trying to deliver a wide range of things to a wide range of citizens

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7Adapted from Davison et al 2005

Stages in the development of e-government

Key findings

1. Organisational change is key to delivering better (e-)services

2. Technology is an enabler – it’s not the answer

3. Using the data and evidence that you already have will allow you to deliver more appropriate, targeted services

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An innovation approach

1. Start with leading governments who want to get better

2. Provide mechanisms to challenge partners

3. Use co-design to move partners out of their comfort zone

4. Build on existing networks

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How we’re doing it

1. Start with local pilot/project work2. Provide academic and practical support

from across the partnership3. Identify what works and why and

lessons learned across the partnership4. Produce transnational outputs based

on these lessons/experiences

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Start with leaders

1. Start with leading governments who want/need to get better

2. Question assumptions about “best practice”

3. Build things collaboratively that really work – use peer review to challenge assumptions, share ideas etc.

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Provide a challenging context

1. Provide mechanisms that can help drive change and challenge partners –e.g. the Smart Cities Academic Network

2. This gives us critical reviews of good practices, of policy contexts etc.

3. It brings information into the partnership and takes learning back out

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Put citizens at the centre

1. What makes sense to you may not make sense to anyone else

2. Co-design is key if you want to build better services that really work

3. Customer profiling helps you understand who your customers really are and what they really want/need

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Become a solution

1. Enable people –listen to them, make them better –make them smart

2. Cities are becoming service platforms, rather than service providers–they can facilitate innovation

3. Put structures in place that others can build on –e.g. through Open Data

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Build on existing networks

1. There are too many networks, but not enough networking

2. It’s not enough to talk about projects working together –there needs to be tools and policies to make this happen

3. You need to provide time for this to happen, and you need to fund it.

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