Presidency: Barcelona

Vice-presidency: Karnataka Government (Bengaluru)

Introduction

Barcelona is willing to take the leadership on the “innovation and governance” issue on the framework of the Metropolis Strategic Plan 2009-2011:

Barcelona is proposing to drive this initiative trough the Partnership for Urban Innovations, an action program that brings selected private sector firms into partnership with specific Metropolis members to develop and implement innovations to meet emerging challenges.

Partnership for Urban Innovations

The Metropolis Strategic Plan 2009-2011 hasselected four key thematic issues to focus the activities of the association:

• A new type of urbanism
• Environmental sustainability and climate change
• Social integration, local economic development and cultural diversity
• Mobility and new technologies

The Partnership for Urban Innovation is an on-going effort focused on new and future solutions to the key challenges laid out in this Plan.

Barcelona’s secretariat will house and manage the PUI program and will help organize regular events to review and demonstrate advances, identify typical problems of the innovation process, and document lessons and conclusions about the innovation process.

The main function of the Secretariat will be to offer support and manage aspects of the PUI that are common to all the four constituent parts. Thus the Secretariat will handle analytical and administrative functions. For instance, analytically, the Secretariat will draw lessons from cases and publish conclusions about the process of innovation in cities.

The Secretariat will also coordinate with Montreal Training Institute to facilitate development of training events and materials that emerge from the PUI and which can be integrated into Metropolis’s program of training and technical assistance.

Centers for innovation partnerships

A second and central feature of the organizational arrangements of the PUI is a core cluster of innovation centers (outer boxes in Fig One). Each box represents an area of policy concern, and each is associated with a city and one or more private sector firms and institutional stakeholders that will anchor implementation actions in each of the four (and eventually six) policy areas

The leading cities, firms and institutions will be selected on the basis of expressed commitment to manage the development and implementation of specific innovations related to it. Some cutting edge solutions—such as telecommunications devices and software that are revolutionizing citizen access and city business processes as well as geospatial planning software—are ready for presentation and scrutiny by members and possibly wider implementation. Other innovations—such as new forms of finance and technologies for building, transport, and water recycling—require further experimentation or pilot efforts before they are rolled out or scaled up.

Other strategic areas remain to be addressed and will be added in the near future once sponsoring cities, corporate partners, and financial support are arranged.