Round Table on tackling urban challenges together

How to optimize knowledge sharing processes between the public and private sector? Every day cities are addressing multiple pressing challenges: sustainable mobility, resilience, various social challenges, energy transition, and climate change. Such challenges are not free-standing issues. That's why it is necessary to act on them using a multidisciplinary approach. Urban researchers and practitioners admit that collaboration between local/regional governments, the private sector, academia, and civil society is becoming essential. This round table made room for potential, fruitful collaboration between Global Compact Network Netherlands and Closer Cities.

Key questions

During the round table, the following questions were addressed: How can cities make better use of urban knowledge the private sector has developed over the years to create more sustainable and liveable cities? What are barriers and boosts, when it comes to urban knowledge sharing between the public and private sector? How to increase the mutual responsibility for urban challenges and optimise the knowledge sharing process between a civil servant and an entrepreneur? In an effort to find answers to these questions, a multiplicity of actors discussed their own experiences on the basis of three cases.

The round table kicked off with a short introduction by the representatives of both Global Compact Network Netherlands and Closer Cities, followed by three presentations on cases by Arcadis, the Municipality of Leeuwarden and Witteveen+Bos, moderated by Eva Rood (of Erasmus School of Management). These talks were followed by three separate breakout rooms with 5-6 people. The discussions within these breakout rooms were led by questions provided by the project submitters and moderated by participating moderators. 

Main insights from Arcadis

• Innovation needs both time and space: which specific context would work well as a testbed for further research and practical experience to build a coalition?
• What is the best level of scale to build our coalitions on?
• Which soft and hard skills ensure the right base for collaboration?

The speed of innovation partly depends on the scale a business or organisation is operating. It is important to start testing locally, on a smaller scale. Testing an idea in one city does not automatically mean it results in similar outcomes in another city. Pilots in different and larger cities are therefore recommended, considering the goal of scaling up. Another important element is laying focus on knowledge sharing to invite all kinds of actors to think along. However, within the circular economy, government regulations can hold back implementing innovation on a larger scale and slow down the overall implementation process. This has to do with the fact that regulations regarding the safety or health-being of certain products are often not up to standard, and therefore a product can easily be determined by the government laws as unsafe.

Personal interest is crucial for ensuring the right base for collaboration, especially within startups or the scale-up field. People with intrinsic motivation are the ones who connect the dots in an ecosystem. From a municipality's perspective, having someone that speaks the language of businesses and can easily put themselves in someone else’s shoes, is another valuable soft skill. Having connections is a key component for establishing the right base for collaboration.

Main insights from the Municipality of Leeuwarden

• How can we as a municipality truly partner with multinationals to create change?
• How can we measure the impact of the projects and initiatives that we already undertake?

Barriers to finding partnerships for change come both from our colleagues in the legal and procurement departments (who are not as familiar with sustainability), and from those we choose to collaborate with, politically speaking (MNEs, NGOs, or startups). Referring to Arcadis’ concept of involving a broad range of stakeholders in the pre-competitive state, it is best to involve everyone in the process early on, but mostly as listeners. This way, we don’t block progress because of legal or political risk. Later on, we can integrate them into the process, and they will all be up-to-date. SDGs are nonpolitical: everyone has agreed on them. Hopefully, initiatives like Global Contact and Closer Cities can be the super connectors in these conversations to make sure that the right people are at the table in this pre-competitive stage.

Main insights from Witteveen+Bos

• How can the triple helix strengthen each other to catalyse sustainability?
• What could be barriers when it comes to effective collaboration in the city?

During the discussion, it became clear that trust is pivotal if we want to develop effective triple-helix collaboration. The same is true for communication: this requires great attention while working together with different types of parties. When you come from different backgrounds, as is the case in the triple and quadruple helix, not everyone speaks the same language due to different organizational cultures. The SDGs provide a common language that can be fitted into each organizational structure so that bridges can be built quicker and more easily. If the private sector and local governments use the common language the SDGs provide and if researchers support this process by translating scientifically substantiated information into pragmatic action, this could certainly build bridges. The focus will be more on ‘what is in it for all of us’ instead of ‘what is in it for me’.