Annex A. Survey on Innovation Capacity in Cities

1. Innovation definition, goals and approaches

This section aims to understand how your municipality builds and maintains innovation capacity in the public sector, and what innovation capacity means and looks like in your city administration. It also aims to understand your city’s goals and strategy for innovation in the public sector, as well as the approaches your city uses to innovate within the administration.

We provide here working definitions of innovation capacity, innovation goals and innovation strategy (you may have different definitions):

• Within a municipal administration, innovation capacity includes the human, financial and institutional resources and skills that can catalyse, implement and advance cutting-edge, inclusive, long-term and bottom-up problem solving. These resources and skills may include some of the approaches noted in the survey question below (Question 1.3), including: data analytics, resident engagement, human-centered design or other iterative design methods, behavioural economics, and inter-sectoral and inter-jurisdictional collaboration.

• Innovation goals are aspirational outcomes or impacts, in both the short and long term, which deliver better outcomes for residents, businesses and the community.

• A city’s innovation strategy is a course forward for how to achieve innovation goals.

1.1. Does your municipality have a formal innovation strategy?

We define “formal” to mean an agreed-upon definition of innovation in your city.

❏ Yes ➜ Please proceed to Question 1.2.

❏ No ➜ Please skip to Question 1.3.

1.2. If so, please provide 2-3 sentences describing your city’s innovation strategy, which may include some of the terminology and approaches listed in Question 1.3. Please also provide a source for this information (e.g. web link).

Examples:

• In our city, we convened leaders from agencies and departments across the administration, as well as resident and neighbourhood associations and civic leaders, to develop an innovation strategy resulting centrally from an evaluation of where the city was falling short with service delivery. Our innovation strategy is public and can be found here: www.innovation.org.

• Our city developed a comprehensive innovation strategy based on “backwards mapping”, where we first fleshed out the change we want to see in 2030 and then developed a bold plan to get there. This document outlines our city’s approach and provides a visual framework for our innovation activities. It is not public, but I will send it with this survey as a PDF attachment.

1.3. In the following table, please select two terms that your municipality most centrally associates with innovation capacity. Please add your own words (up to two in total) if yours are not listed here. Replies from cities will be compiled into a collective word cloud.

Big picture rethinking	Experimentation, pilots and prototyping	Behavioural economics, nudging	Hierarchy-busting, breaking down silos
Data analytics	Technological innovation	Human-centered design	Foresight, scenario planning
Resident engagement, crowdsourcing	Bold leadership

If you do not select two terms above, please list up to two here:

1. 1. Other term not specified above: ______________________________

2. 2. Other term not specified above: _____________________________

1.4. Would you say your city approaches innovation capacity at a holistic, macro level, or within specific policy domains?

Please select all that apply:

❏ We think about innovation in specific policy areas/domains ➜ Please proceed with Question 1.5.

❏ We think about innovation capacity at a holistic, macro level ➜ Please skip to Question 1.6.

❏ Other. Please specify: _____________________________________________

Example:

• Our city’s innovation capacity efforts are, for the moment, focused internally on rethinking our human resources and city administrative services.

1.5. Which two policy areas would you say are most prioritised in your municipality’s innovation work? Please add your own policy area or issue (up to two in total) if yours are not listed here.

Transport/mobility	Economic development	Land use/zoning	Built environment
Blight	Housing, homelessness	Social welfare/social services	Policing and law enforcement
Waste, sanitation, sewage	Digital governance	Health	Water, public works
Labour markets, jobs, skills	Education	Social inclusion and equity	Environment/ climate change
Culture	Tourism

If you do not select two terms above, please list up to two here:

1. 1. Other term not specified above: ______________________________

2. 2. Other term not specified above: ______________________________

1.6. What would you say is the level of use or experience your city has with each of the following innovation activities?

Please select the appropriate level of use or experience for each of the following activities: Never used; Familiar with/use rarely; Use sometimes; Regularly use.

___ Taking risks or trying untested ideas (e.g. prototyping new programmes or models to address a persistent city challenge).

___ Data-driven analytics/public data management (e.g. data storage/analytics; open data; big data).

___ Engaging residents in new ways (e.g. via digital technologies, co-creation, ethnography, etc.).

___ Developing new solutions based on digital technologies (e.g. use of drones or smart sensors).

___ Organisational change within the municipality (e.g. silo-busting; new internal performance management; staff training and capacity building on innovation tools or techniques; reforms to contracting or procurement).

___ Human-centered design (e.g. prioritising the end user at each stage of the design process).

___ Rethinking your city’s approaches to financing and partnerships (e.g. new public- private partnerships; collaboration with neighbouring jurisdictions).

___ Foresight, prospective exercises, scenario planning.

___ Other, please specify: _______________________________________________

Example:

• Our city’s substantive focus is on improving citywide service delivery; we use a range of the approaches above to get there.

1.7. To what extent does your city’s innovation work include partnerships within and outside the municipal administration?

Please select all that apply:

❏ Innovation work is internal to our city administration.

❏ Innovation work engages other levels of government and public agencies (public authorities/school districts, regions/counties/territories, national government, other municipalities).

❏ Innovation work engages private firms and industry.

❏ Innovation work engages not-for-profit/non-governmental organisations, the philanthropic sector, or academia/think tanks.

❏ Innovation work engages city residents and resident associations.

❏ Other. Please specify: _____________________________________________

Example:

• Our innovation team itself hosts participatory planning sessions, meaning that we interact with residents directly and not through any formal group or association.

1.8. [Optional] In no more than 2-3 sentences, please let us know if there are any types of innovation methods or approaches on which your city staff would want or benefit from training?

Example:

• Our city has been following with great interest the budding field of behavioural insights and behavioural economics. We would benefit from training about what constitutes effective “nudging”.

1.9. [Optional] In no more than 2-3 sentences, please tell us anything else about your city’s definition of innovation capacity, your city’s innovation strategy, or your innovation goals and approaches.

Example:

• In our city, we have good experience with foresight exercises and scenario planning, given our region’s unique climate and geography. Indeed, we have created some exercises of our own and would be eager to share our approach with other municipalities.

2. Innovation organisation and structure within the administration

This section aims to understand how innovation is organised within the municipal administration, for instance, regarding the existence of designated staff, team(s) and officer(s) for innovation.

We define innovation staff as the following (but you may have a different definition): individuals, teams, officers or other people that spend a considerable amount of city time thinking about the city’s innovation capacities, goals or strategies, or supporting others to do so.

2.1. Are there people in your city (such as, but not limited to) designated team(s) and/or officer(s) for public sector innovation in your municipality?

❏ Yes ➜ Go to Question 2.2.

❏ No ➜ Go to Question 2.7.

2.2. How many total innovation-related staff work in your municipality?

Note: Although there are likely many people in your city government doing innovative work, this question concerns staff in your city working specifically on building innovation capacity.

❏No dedicated staff.

❏ Less than 5 staff dedicated to innovation.

❏ Between 5 and 10 staff dedicated to innovation.

❏ Between 10 and 15 staff dedicated to innovation.

❏ More than 15 staff dedicated to innovation.

❏ Innovation work is sprinkled throughout the municipal administration.

❏ Other: We don’t have any city staff working on innovation, but we have hired (an) external consultant(s) to work on the topic.

❏ Other. Please specify: ____________________________________

Example:

• No dedicated staff work on innovation, but it is an approach we use throughout agencies and departments.

2.3. What types of professional skills does your city have in its innovation staff?

Please select all that apply.

Innovation staff include those working on innovation capacity throughout the city administration, not in one place or office only. 

❏ Data scientist/computer scientist.

❏ Engineer (civil/mechanical/electrical/other).

❏ Designer (including those trained in human-centered design).

❏ Sociologist (including those trained in qualitative methods, ethnography).

❏ Project manager (scholars or practitioners of leadership or management).

❏ Staff with strategic communications/marketing experience.

❏ Community or resident engagement staff (including staff trained in leading participatory outreach sessions).

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• Although we do not have a formal innovation “team”, our city has policy-specific innovation leads who convene senior staff at their respective agencies monthly to chat about long-term rethinking. They are all subject-area experts and leadership/management professionals.

2.4. Please provide the name and title of the staff member leading your city’s work on innovation, if applicable.

Example:

• Jean Valjean; Chief Innovation Officer; leads a team of six.

2.5. Where, in your city administration, does the innovation team sit?

❏ Mayor’s office.

❏ City manager’s office/head of city administration office.

❏ Own department or body dedicated to innovation.

❏ Innovation work is sprinkled throughout the municipal administration.

❏ Innovation-related task group with delegates from different departments.

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• Our innovation team sits within the Department of Environmental Protection because our work largely centres on climate resiliency.

2.6. How long has this position or team existed?

❏ Less than 1 year.

❏ 1-3 years.

❏ 3-5 years.

❏ More than 5 years.

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• Our innovation team in its current form is two years old, but before this time, we had a smaller team based in the mayor’s office. This team existed for five years before its current iteration.

2.7. [Optional]: In no more than 2-3 sentences, please tell us anything else about the staffing and structure of innovation in your city.

Example:

• Although small, our city’s innovation team has been growing rapidly. We are adding one to two people every few months and plan to eventually have a team of nine by 2020.

3. Funding for innovation capacity

This section aims to understand the funding and resources dedicated to developing and maintaining innovation capacity (as opposed to funding for programmes or activities resulting from innovative decisions) in your municipality. This could include, for instance, funding for staff of an innovation team; funding for data, infrastructure or systems that are intended to support the city’s innovation work; etc.

3.1. Is there specific funding available at the municipality level to support innovation capacity?

❏ Yes ➜ Please continue to Question 3.2.

❏ No ➜ Please go to Section 4.

3.2. To the degree you have funding that enhances your capacity to innovate, where does this funding originate from?

Please select all that apply.

❏ From international/multilateral institution budget (i.e. European Union).

❏ From central/federal/national government budget.

❏ From regional/state/province/territorial budget.

❏ From municipal budget:

      ❏ City council approved funds.

      ❏ Operating budget.

      ❏ Special funding process (bond, mayoral special initiative funding, etc.).

      ❏ Participatory budgeting/citizen-selected budgeting.

      ❏ Other. Please specify: ________________________________________

❏ External (non-public) funding:

      ❏ Private.

      ❏ Philanthropic/non-profit.

      ❏ Academic/think tank resources.

❏ Innovative financing tools (i.e. social impact bonds, crowdsourcing).

❏ Non-financial: Staff on loan.

❏ Non-financial: Other in-kind contributions (e.g. materials, infrastructure…).

❏ Other. Please specify: _______________________________________________

Example:

• Our city does not have innovation capacity funding formally, but our mayor’s office does have funding to engage residents in big picture city rethinking, which comes from crowdfunding campaigns.

3.3. What types of activities are being funded by resources earmarked for innovation?

Please select all that apply:

❏ Idea generation and brainstorming (e.g. new or updated plans).

❏ Investing in digital systems, technologies or infrastructure (e.g. data sensors, an open data portal).

❏ Investing in physical infrastructure (e.g. new smart bus stops).

❏ Launching or sustaining a project or initiative (e.g. municipal identification card).

❏ Paying for services to a third party (e.g. contract with a payroll company to restructure payroll).

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• Our innovation team hosts design thinking sessions with experts from IDEO about how to improve city norms, policies and practices.

3.4. [Optional] In no more than 2-3 sentences, please tell us anything else about the resources and funding to strengthen your city’s innovation capacity.

Example:

• Funding to develop stronger innovation capacity within our city differs every year. Now we have city council approved allocations in the operating budget, funded by property taxes, but previously these activities were funded entirely by philanthropic partners, which funded our first staff position dedicated to working on innovation.

4. Data for innovation

This section aims to understand how your municipality is generating, managing and/or sharing data. In most practices of public sector innovation, data are a crucial enabler for the municipality for more evidence-based decision making.

4.1. How significant a role do data play in your city’s innovation efforts and decision making?

❏ A significant role – our city’s decisions and policies are highly evidence-based.

❏ Data play somewhat of a role, though oftentimes we make recommendations without data.

❏ Data play a small but useful role.

❏ No major/substantive role ➜ Please skip to Section 5.

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• Our innovation team uses data, but not just traditional quantitative data. We interview stakeholders, conduct needs analyses and host listening sessions; we consider the results of these sessions to be data.

4.2. Does your city have sufficient data in the following policy areas to support your work on innovation?

Please select all that apply.

Please note: This question seeks to assess the extent to which sufficient data in a given policy area are available to city staff, regardless of whether these data are exploited to inform innovation work.

Transport/mobility	Economic development	Land use/zoning	Built environment
Blight	Housing, homelessness	Social welfare/social services	Policing and law enforcement
Waste, sanitation, sewage	Digital governance	Health	Water, public works
Labour markets, jobs, skills	Education	Social inclusion and equity	Environment/ climate change
Culture	Tourism

If you do not select two terms above, please list up to two here:

1. 1. Other term not specified above: ______________________________

2. 2. Other term not specified above: ______________________________

4.3. Does your city have insufficient data in any of the following areas that would be useful to advance your innovation work?

Please select all that apply.

Please note: This question seeks to assess the extent to which data are unavailable and/or insufficient in a given policy area.

Transport/mobility	Economic development	Land use/zoning	Built environment
Blight	Housing, homelessness	Social welfare/social services	Policing and law enforcement
Waste, sanitation, sewage	Digital governance	Health	Water, public works
Labour markets, jobs, skills	Education	Social inclusion and equity	Environment/ climate change
Culture	Tourism

If you do not select two terms above, please list up to two here:

1. 1. Other term not specified above: ______________________________

2. 2. Other term not specified above: ______________________________

4.4. What are the most challenging factors that prevent your municipality from optimising its use of data to support innovation goals?

For each factor, please indicate: Very challenging; Challenging; Not a challenge; Don’t know.

___ Lack of reliable data.

___ Public distrust of government data.

___ Lack of staff capacity to collect, store or analyse data.

___ Lack of technical infrastructure/computing power, or lack of funding to optimise data use.

___ Lack of compatible data across different policy areas (i.e. different data sources, inconsistent definition of terms or formats across jurisdictions, agencies or departments).

___ One ministry/agency/unit might have data, but data are not routinely shared with other agencies/institutions.

___ Insufficient interaction with data producers that may be part of higher levels of government (e.g. national statistical office) or outside government.

___ Data collection and analysis is not an institutional priority/core value.

___ Other. Please specify: _______________________________________________

Example:

• Our biggest challenge actually lies in data analysis across departments – staff members take away different things from the same datasets when viewed from the lens of their department’s perspective.

4.5. In your city, has your municipality developed any partnerships with the aim of collecting or analysing data to fuel innovation capacity or strategy?

Please select all that apply:

❏ Partnerships with the private sector.

❏ Partnerships with academia and/or think tanks.

❏ Partnerships with private philanthropy.

❏ Partnerships with other cities, countries or government entities.

❏ No major/substantive role for partners ➜ Please skip to Section 5.

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• In our city, we have developed a new engagement with a prominent private sector client to get data on street and transportation activity. This has been complemented by a new relationship with local civic group to produce a report on neighbourhood-specific challenges.

4.6. [Optional] In no more than 2-3 sentences, is there anything more you would like to tell us about data, communications or other tools your city uses in relation to innovation?

Example:

• Our city has developed a new tool called “Blight-Finder” to catalogue, spatially map and categorise different types of blighted properties across our city. This initiative was made possible through a partnership with a local civic group. However, our city is held back by its current lack of skilled staff in-house to analyse or understand these data.

5. Innovation outcomes

This section aims to understand the broader outcomes of your city’s innovation strategy, goals.

5.1. Does your city have formal innovation goals?

Recall that we define innovation goals as aspirational outcomes or impacts, in both the short and long term, which deliver better outcomes for residents, businesses and the community.

❏ Yes ➜ Please proceed to Question 5.2.

❏ No ➜ Please skip to Question 5.3.

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• Our city does not have formal innovation “goals,” per se, but we do have a “Vision 2030” with an innovation strategy of how to get there. This document was crafted by the mayor’s office and is available at: www.vision2030.org.

5.2. How would you say that your city is doing with regards to meeting your stated innovation goals?

❏ Too early/cannot yet say.

❏ It is going well: We are meeting many or most innovation goals.

❏ It is going so-so: We are meeting some innovation goals, but not others.

❏ It is going poorly: We are meeting few or no innovation goals.

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• The progress toward our stated innovation goals varies tremendously by department. We are meeting many goals in transport, mobility and the built environment, but we need to make more progress in our city’s social and human services goals.

5.3. What is innovation helping your city do better?

Please rank your top three responses (1 = Helping you most; 2 = Helping you second most; 3 = Helping you third most):

___ Improving internal government operations (e.g. streamlining budget processes and workflows; fostering inter-agency co-operation).

___ Cost savings and efficiency within the public sector.

___ Anticipating and managing future challenges (e.g. demographic, economic, social and environmental).

___ Servicing current obligations (e.g. pensions).

___ Improving service delivery (e.g. emergency services, housing, mobility, social services, etc.).

___ Improving resident outcomes (e.g. improving health or job outcomes).

___ Simplifying administrative procedures for firms and residents (e.g. licensing, permits).

___ Generating new sources of revenue or resources for the city (e.g. land-value capture).

___ Engaging residents and other stakeholders.

___ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• Innovation is helping us better manage procurement and contracting, which leads to better service delivery and helps government service current obligations.

5.4. Does your municipality undertake a systematic assessment or evaluation of the impact of your innovation strategy?

❏ Yes, we systematically and comprehensively evaluate our innovation strategy, and our innovation programme outcomes.

❏ We evaluate some elements of our innovation strategy, but do not systematically and comprehensively evaluate our innovation programme outcomes.

❏ We evaluate some innovation programme outcomes, but do not systematically and comprehensively evaluate our innovation strategy.

❏ No, we don’t evaluate our innovation strategy or our innovation programme outcomes.

❏ Too early/can’t yet say.

❏ Don’t know/cannot answer.

5.5. What specific outcomes are you measuring to determine whether innovation efforts in your city are effective? Please provide additional information in the box provided.

Please select all that apply:

❏ We are not measuring achievement of our innovation goals at this time. ➜ Please skip to Question 5.6.

❏ Quality and/or accessibility of public services (e.g. expanded transport network).

❏ Cost savings and efficiency within the public sector.

❏ Job outcomes (e.g. employment rate, job quality, wages).

❏ Environmental quality (e.g. air or water quality).

❏ Housing conditions (e.g. affordability, quality).

❏ Health outcomes (e.g. life expectancy, obesity).

❏ Income inequality (e.g. income gap, segregation).

❏ Resident engagement and sense of community (e.g. voting rate, engagement in civic life, volunteer rates).

❏ Economic development (e.g. attracting new firms).

❏ Other. Please specify: ______________________________________________

Example:

• In procurement and contracting, we measure the number of competitive bids and the length of time to award a contract across the city.

5.6. How important are the following factors or practices in supporting innovation in your municipality?

For each factor, please indicate: Very important; Important; Not important:

__ Dedicated funding/financial support for innovation.

__ Strong focus on data and measurement to drive decision making and/or measure outcomes and impact.

__ A strong team/dedicated staff support.

__ Human resource involvement, support and training.

__ Leadership commitment from the mayor and prominent city actors.

__ Culture of innovation within the municipal administration.

__ Engagement with partners (advising firms, consultants).

___ Support from residents, businesses, universities and/or the broader community.

❏ Don’t know/couldn’t say.

❏ Other. Please specify: ____________________________________________

Example:

• The culture of our city partnerships with consultants and funders is the most important factor supporting innovation capacity in this city.

5.7. [Optional] In no more than 2-3 sentences, please tell us anything else about innovation outcomes in your city that you think would be relevant for us. For instance, tell us how your innovative new projects led to impressive, positive or unexpected outcomes. Or tell us about some outcomes you would like to be measuring, but for which you do not have the data.

Example:

• In our city, we have invested heavily in a new open data portal to publish public data from all city departments. While it has led to greater government transparency, an unexpected outcome has also been to facilitate data sharing within the municipal administration, ultimately helping to break down silos across city departments.

5.8. [Optional] We want to highlight cutting-edge examples of how cities are innovating worldwide. Take one of your innovation capacity processes, practices or tools, and tell us more about it in a few sentences. You can also tell us about innovation approaches or partnerships, but try to focus more on the process and approach, and less on the activities resulting from them.

Please provide sources/web links and the name of the process, tool, approach or partnership so that we can find out more.

Example:

• Our city developed a new partnership with a prominent local company for technology to map resident satisfaction on quality of life issues by neighbourhood, and partnered with a well-known local university for the data itself. The initiative is called the “Lives and Livelihoods” initiative, launched in 2014. You can learn more about the initiative at: www.livesandlivelihoods.org.

End of survey.

Annex A. Survey on Innovation Capacity in Cities