Urban Living Partnership: Pilot Progress Overview

The successful Urban Living Partnership pilot projects commenced in June 2016. Each pilot recently completed a six month progress report (January 2017) for the Partnership and Advisory Group to highlight work progressed, challenges identified and also opportunities that have arisen throughout their diagnostic stage. The below provides a brief overview of work completed.

Bristol Urban Integrated Diagnostics

The UrbanID project has built a core cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary team bringing together public and private sector practitioners from across the Bristol urban area with academics from the University of Bristol and University of the West of England.  The project has:

• Scoped out four geographically located case studies which with to test and evaluate the proposed Integrated Diagnostics  framework and toolset;
• Identified four challenge themes of Health & Happiness, Carbon Neutrality, Mobility & Accessibility, and Inclusion & Equality and are providing analytical viewpoints from which to diagnose challenges;
• Developed a framework that brings together systems thinking, co-production, learning journey and resilient agency approaches, and thereby integrates research from across the academic community.

Further details on the Bristol pilot.

Newcastle City Futures

Previously named the Newcastle and Gateshead Urban Living Partnership Pilot, the Newcastle City Futures (NCF) project is divided into four phases:

• Set up of the partnership- Over the first four months of the project, NFC has established the NFC Unit with appropriate appointments being made. A launch event with key stakeholders took place on 31 May 2016 whereby initial challenges, identified as Ageing, Social Renewal and Sustainability were further discussed;
• Baseline integrated assessment and diagnostic- Work on the 5 streams has commenced:

• Foresight future methodologies
• System of systems approach
• Visualisation
• Digital Platforms
• Digital creative arts and humanities platform

Data and case studies have been visualised and presented to different stakeholders to enable dialogue between sectors increase challenge understanding and opportunities that arise;

• Embedding future perspectives into partner institutions- Building on Phase 2, seeking to widen Board presentations to close knowledge gaps. Collaboration and sharing of best practice will be key;
• Preparation of delivery phase- The partnership will create demonstration projects designed to address the challenges originally outlined and create a pathway to implementation.

Further information can be found at Newcastle City Futures and on their YouTube playlist.

Leeds- Transformational Route mapping for Urban Environments (TRUE)

Over the last six months, the TRUE project has embedded productive working practices of the partnership, built an effective understanding of the relevance of the project and its ability to meet city priorities with their core partner at Leeds City Council and set up the work streams in subgroups to effectively deliver the research. TRUE have also:

• Completed the first route map review
• Set a framework for analysis and scoping of the final TRUE products
• Built productive relationships between the Co-I’s, project partners and academic advisers which has yielded a robust research platform and a plan for publication

Further information on the Leeds TRUE project.

York City Environment Observatory (YCEO)

York City have undertaken stakeholder consultation which alongside existing work has identified the needs, challenges and gaps of the following work packages:

• Characterising stakeholder perceptions of the importance of York’s city environment for health, well-being and the economy
•  Development of a York City Environment Open Data and Model Platform
• Evaluation of data availability and data needs for answering key questions on York’s city environment
• Design of the York City Environment Observatory

Further information can be found at YCEO.

Urban Living Birmingham

Urban Living Birmingham (ULB) aims to catalyse and transform the provision of urban services and governance, producing better outcomes for people. It seeks to transform citizens into co-creators and co-innovators of urban services, and to transform the City Council from services provider to services facilitator.

Six analysis techniques have been deployed by ULB within the projects first six months for the purposes of creating a holistic understanding of Birmingham and identifying their critical challenges.  

The second stage of the project will focus on exploring the interdependent nature of the challenges identified during the first six months and understanding end-user innovation and city systems. The focus will be on identifying opportunities for innovation that will produce better outcomes for people living and working in Birmingham.

Further details on the Birmingham pilot.