Glasgow selected to be City of the Future

Glasgow selected to be City of the Future

25 JAN 2013

Glasgow has been given a boost today after it was chosen to receive £24 million of government investment to demonstrate how a city of the future will work. Glasgow beat off competition from 30 other UK cities to host the Technology Strategy Board’s ‘Future Cities Demonstrator’.

The city will demonstrate how providing new integrated services across health, transport, energy and public safety can improve the local economy and increase the quality of life of Glasgow’s citizens, and will allow UK businesses to test new solutions that can be exported around the globe.

Announcing the investment during a visit to Glasgow, Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts said:

“With more people than ever before living in our cities, they need to be able to provide people with a better quality of life and a thriving economy. This £24 million investment will make Glasgow a city of tomorrow, demonstrating how cities can work more efficiently with a reduced environmental impact.

“We are in a global race and Glasgow can keep the UK at the forefront of innovative technology ideas. From transport systems to energy use and health, this demonstrator will play a key part in the government’s industrial strategy and give real insight into how our cities can be shaped in the future.”

The Glasgow Future Cities Demonstrator aims to address some of the city’s most pressing energy and health needs. For example, developing systems to help tackle fuel poverty and to look at long-standing health issues such as low life expectancy.

The demonstrator will also show how innovative use of technology can improve the Council’s service provision, while additional potential benefits include improved crime prevention, a reduction in anti-social behaviour and improvements in travel infrastructure.

Future Cities Demonstrator

The Technology Strategy Board will invest up to £25m in a large-scale demonstrator for future cities.

The project will demonstrate at scale, and in use, the additional value that can be created by integrating city systems. The project will enable businesses to test, in practice, new solutions for connecting and integrating city systems, and will allow UK cities to explore new approaches to delivering a good local economy and excellent quality of life, whilst reducing the environmental footprint and increasing resilience to environmental change.

This will be a two-stage competition process. Cities will be invited to bid for funding to carry out a feasibility study and develop their demonstrator project proposal. Up to 20 grants of £50k will be available and will be funded at 100% of eligible costs. A requirement of the 100% public funding is that a publicly available report is produced on the results of the feasibility study.

In the second stage, cities will complete their feasibility study report and can also submit a proposal for the large-scale demonstrator. Up to £24m is available for the project. The demonstrator will attract 100% public funding of eligible costs. To achieve the scale required to effectively test the value of integrating city systems, we intend to fund a single demonstrator project. A requirement of the 100% public funding is that the results of the demonstrator project are made publicly available and are widely disseminated.

This is a competition for cities. Stage 1 will open on 11 June 2012and applications must be submitted by noon on 5 July 2012. Feasibility study reports and full stage 2 applications must be submitted by noon on 14 November 2012.