Technology Strategy Board - Driving Innovation Cities are engines for innovation and growth. People in cities tend to be more productive, wealthier, better educated, and more likely to start a new business. Cities also make better use of resources. But with populations rising, how do we plan, design and manage cities that can cope with things like pressures on resources and increased waste, while meeting carbon and climate challenges? Future Cities describes the major economic opportunity that comes from encouraging the development of products and services that address the unmet needs of cities, now and in the future. The Future Cities Special Interest Group is exploring the challenges and opportunities around shaping the urban environment for future generations in cities.

1. Future Cities Catapult
Vision and Scope
June 2012
Technology Strategy Board
Driving Innovation

2. 2 Future Cities Catapult Vision and Scope
Vision and Scope
June 2012
Introduction of the UK’s GDP are telling us that they need
By 2030 there new solutions if they are going to invest
The Technology Strategy Board is establishing could be a effectively. Although this is a global challenge,
a Future Cities Catapult – a world-leading no other country has yet developed a national
technology and innovation centre.
£200bn global centre to provide integrated solutions to the
market annually future needs of cities.
The Catapult will help UK businesses to
create products and services that meet the for integrated city The market is large and growing. Over £6.5tn
will be invested globally in city infrastructure
needs of the world’s cities as they adapt to systems over the next 10-15 years, and the accessible
future demands.
market for integrated city systems is
As cities compete to deliver a thriving expected to be £200bn a year by 2030.
economy and good quality of life with a
The larger and more accessible market for
smaller environmental footprint, there is
future cities is in retrofitting existing cities
a rapidly growing market for innovative
and serving rapidly expanding cities.
solutions that integrate and optimise
the major systems of a city. This includes The UK is well positioned to exploit this
a city’s health, energy, water, waste, A ‘future city’ has growing market. We have world-leading
communications, buildings and transport. a thriving economy companies in project management,
engineering, architecture, energy and transport
The centre will focus on integration across and good quality systems, communications and the digital
these systems. We estimate that by 2030
there will be a £200bn global market annually
of life with reduced economy, finance, legal and insurance. Our
ability to bring together the cluster of companies
for integrated city systems. environmental needed to design, finance, risk manage and
The Catapult will address the following footprint execute large infrastructure projects makes the
challenges: UK a major global centre for such projects.
— connecting city systems to enable The UK has a world-class science and research
integration and interoperability base that supports the development of innovative
— increasing city density and population solutions and provides a talent pool for UK
without congestion and global firms.
— transitioning to resource-efficient,
low-carbon cities Vision
— resilient energy systems.
What are Catapults? The Future Cities Catapult will help UK businesses
We invite organisations and individuals to help to develop high-value, integrated urban solutions
us to develop the detailed programme for the The Future Cities Catapult forms part and then sell those solutions to the world.
Catapult. Initial contributions to feed into of the Technology Strategy Board’s
development of an outline business case and £200m-plus programme to establish It will create a technical capability to achieve
model are requested by 9 July 2012. and oversee a network of technology new levels of systems integration. It will join
and innovation centres. These business, city governments and academia
Catapults will be drivers of sustained in a unique collaboration to enable
Future cities: economic growth, attracting substantial businesses to develop products and services
challenges and opportunities investment to establish world-leading for this emerging market. It will act as an
capability and global impact in pre- accelerator for UK firms as they innovate to
Cities are a vital part of future global commercial development. meet the needs of the world’s cities. It will
economies and are growing rapidly. But they provide both a neutral space, and the intensity
are threatened by challenges including a of collaboration, that cities and firms say is
changing climate, population growth, What are ‘future cities’? currently missing.
shifting demographics and resource crunches.
A future city is one that can provide a
We therefore need to create integrated thriving economy and good quality of life Specific barriers
city-wide systems that maximise the benefits with a reduced environmental footprint.
of major cities, whilst managing the downsides. It is able to maximise the many economic We need to overcome the specific barriers to
The complexity of the challenge facing cities is benefits of a city, often related to density innovation. These include:
beyond any single business, sector or discipline, and proximity, whilst managing the — a focus on innovation in specific city
and there is strong demand for solutions in the downsides, such as congestion or waste. subsystems, such as water and energy, rather
UK and globally. Cities representing over 80% than integration.

3. 3 Future Cities Catapult Vision and Scope
These silos are seen in the work of The transition to resource-efficient,
businesses, the research base, and in city low-carbon cities Many major cities have
government organisational structures set challenging targets for becoming more
— no individual company has all the skills resource efficient and in particular for carbon
necessary to deliver the requirements of
Over £6.5tn will be reduction. City governments talk about the
cities in the future. This is a particular problem invested globally in city importance of decoupling growth from
for smaller innovative companies, but even infrastructure over the resource consumption. How should cities
the largest find it difficult to build broad develop their infrastructure to enable
enough collaborations to meet the challenge
next 10-15 years low-carbon resource-efficient growth?
— no neutral space for city governments, What levers are available to cities and how
business and the knowledge base to can they be used?
collaborate on new integrated solutions Resilient energy systems City leaders
— solutions need to be demonstrated and are concerned that their current energy
validated at scale and in use to convince infrastructure will not be able to cope with
the market. Little data is available on increased population, increased demand
performance in use of integrated systems from new low-carbon transport systems, and
wider use of distributed and renewable
— limited involvement of the social and Projected city energy supplies. New energy supply systems
behavioural sciences in developing
solutions that recognise cities as places
population will involve new players beyond the
where people live and work; placing growths of more traditional utilities.
citizens at the heart of the city. than 40% are Developing innovative responses to these
challenges will provide UK firms with major
common opportunities globally, as they reflect the
Scope and initial priorities
priorities of so many cities.
Our extensive consultation identified the
challenges facing cities and those seeking to Capabilities
serve cities with new technologies, products
and services. Many of them can only be tackled Supporting business to develop products
through focused integration across city The Future Cities Catapult programme will and services to meet these challenges will
systems, requiring cross-sector and cross- initially focus on the following challenges. require the Catapult to develop a strong
discipline collaboration. set of capabilities including:
Connecting city systems to enable
This has given us a clear scope for the integration and interoperability A key — real-time analysis and control for city systems
Catapult. The Catapult will focus on the challenge in integrating city systems is — a ‘cities observatory’ that monitors
integration of city systems to help businesses to break through the current silos to enable multiple field trials across different cities
create the products and services that cities multi-way communications between the — advanced modelling, data capture, data
will require in the future to meet their need systems. This means using current data analysis and visualisation
for a strong economy and excellent quality interchange standards where they exist,
of life with low environmental impact. — instrumentation and communications for
and developing new standards where they
smart city infrastructure
It will focus initially on helping businesses do not. This will enable businesses and cities
to extract and analyse information from — management, integration and analysis of
provide solutions for retrofitting existing
city systems, make decisions and act upon very large datasets
cities and for rapid expansion of cities – this
is the larger and more accessible market. those decisions. — design, implementation and management
Increasing city density and population of field trials and demonstration projects
The Catapult will not work on individual
without congestion Cities in both the — integrated urban design and planning for
city systems in isolation. Instead, it will work
developed and developing worlds are future cities
on the integration of systems, specifically
focusing on the way they combine and expecting rapid growth in population. — understanding of consumer choice and
interact to create opportunities for better Projected population growths of more than behaviour within cities
performance and greater value. 40% in the coming years are common.
— developing new finance and insurance
How can a city develop and integrate its built
strategies for cities
It will work on projects that are rooted in environment, transport, communications
specific, practical challenges of cities, where and other infrastructure to support that — understanding of the interaction of different
solutions to real market needs can be level of growth without losing all the gains city governance structures, and of funding
developed into investable propositions. to congestion? and executing city-wide projects.

4. 4 Future Cities Catapult Vision and Scope
Register your interest at
www.catapult.org.uk/futurecities
Operating principles Cities will gain opportunities to collaborate We would like to hear from companies, city
with business on co-creating new solutions, governments and organisations that:
The Catapult will be a centre for integration, support to become better procurers, — are interested in using the facilities and
complementing existing academic and and pragmatic strategies for enhanced participating in the programmes of the
business-led centres, and will focus on cross- economic growth. centre, and/or
discipline and cross-sector collaboration. As a centre of excellence with an — have relevant resources and capabilities
It will be an autonomous research and international reputation, strongly linked that could contribute to the operations of
development organisation, with its own to the knowledge base of the country, the the centre and to projects and activities.
management, R&D and support staff, Catapult will help to anchor the research and
We welcome input from individuals,
resources and capabilities. It will be located innovation programmes of international
businesses, cities, academics and other
in a single physical location, led by an and multinational companies in the UK, and interested groups to help shape the
entrepreneurial director of international will strengthen the position of the UK for focus of the centre. We are not seeking
standing and overseen by a business-led inward investment in city system innovation. consortia to lead or to run the Catapult.
supervisory board. It will create partnerships that would not The next stage in the creation of the Future
The Future Cities Catapult will be: otherwise form. It will help to develop Cities Catapult is to take the vision and scope
— a single centre to create intensity of standards and new ways of collaborating described here and to develop it into an
collaboration across many disciplines that will accelerate the development of outline business case and business model
new and commercially significant products that provides more detail on the facilities
— linked to demonstration projects in cities
and services. and capabilities that need to be provided,
in the UK and in other countries
and the financial investments required.
— host to a city observatory to enable real-
time data-capture, analysis and visualisation Funding We plan to complete this phase of the work
by late summer 2012.
linked to multiple in situ projects
All Catapults will obtain their funds from a Please visit and register with the Future
— linked to related Catapults including combination of core Technology Strategy
Transport Systems and Connected Digital Cities Special Interest Group at www.
Board support and competitively won catapult.org.uk/futurecities, where
Economy, drawing on their skills and
business and public sector funding. It is you will find further information on the
developing joint programmes
expected, when fully established, to generate Catapult and a questionnaire about the
— linked strategically with relevant centres revenue broadly equally from three sources: programme and facilities. Please complete
of expertise in the UK and beyond.
— business-funded R&D contracts, won the questionnaire by midnight on 9 July to
Collaborations between businesses, city competitively allow us to include your suggestions in the
governments and academics to develop, deploy — national and EU collaborative applied development of the Catapult plan.
and learn from new integrated city-wide R&D projects, funded jointly by The Technology Strategy Board is a business-
solutions will build projects of global significance. the public and private sectors and led executive non-departmental public body,
The Catapult will enter into non-exclusive won competitively established by the Government. Its role is to
partnerships with businesses and work with — core public funding of up to £10m per promote and support research into, and
other innovative organisations within the year for long-term investment in development and exploitation of, technology
UK and internationally. These will include infrastructure capability and the ability and innovation for the benefit of UK business,
partners wishing to exploit its capabilities, to support business- led collaborative in order to increase economic growth and
and partners who can bring capabilities and projects and contracts. improve quality of life.
facilities to the Catapult.
Join in Developing the Catapult
Benefits
The Technology Strategy Board is leading the
The Catapult will provide UK businesses process to establish the Future Cities Technology Strategy Board
with a unique facility and the necessary Catapult with the support and help of the North Star House
capabilities to develop and test new products business, city, and academic communities. North Star Avenue
and services. This will include live trials, This will include drafting the initial business Swindon SN2 1UE
reducing the time-to-market for new plan and appointing a leadership team, Telephone: 01793 442700
integrated technologies, reducing the cost under the guidance of the Technology
and risk of pursuing new collaborative Strategy Board’s governing board, and with Helpline: 0300 321 4357
www.innovateuk.org
approaches, and increasing understanding the help of an interim advisory group
of how to scale up city-wide solutions. appointed by the Technology Strategy Board. © Technology Strategy Board T12/061