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Open University Publish Report on Smart Cities Evaluation
OU release an analysis of the current practices for evaluating the success of UK smart cities.
The report, led by The Open University through the MK:Smart programme and entitled ‘A Tale of Evaluation and Reporting in UK Smart Cities’, reviews a series of UK smart city case studies in order to find a suitable evaluation framework for smart cities.
Local government authorities representing Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough were interviewed about their smart city work, typically framed within future city programmes.
The cities included are also exploring the value of data intelligence, considering the opportunities for data-driven evaluation and reporting of smart city work, afforded by smart technologies.
The Open University researchers concentrated on 3 key areas:
- How are cities approaching evaluation of their smart city programmes and projects?
- How effective are the approaches taken by cities to evaluation?
- How are cities reporting on the evaluation of their smart city work?
Project-level evaluation was found to be the typical format of evaluation for smart city work, often driven by funders’ requirements.
Those interviewed noted concerns around premature evaluation of projects, with interviewees believing it could crush innovation opportunities. Instead current evaluation processes should be replaced by real-world demonstrations of the validity of the smart city concept.
A number of evaluations were done as an extension of pre-set KPIs for the city in general, and were not project specific. This is reflective of the challenge administrations face in creating appropriate reporting structures embedded into city management structures, and how the value of smart city work is communicated.
