Innovation is helping to:
Improve internal government operations
Anticipate and manage future challenges
Critical success factors:
Focus on measurement
Leadership from Mayor
Culture of innovation in city
Support from outside city administration
Bilbao
Spain
Mayor
Juan María Aburto
Population
345,122 (2016)
Innovation Website
Lead Innovation Officer
Jordán Guardo
Spotlight on innovation in Bilbao
Bilbao has been integrating bottom-up approaches to its municipal strategy. Each councilor, each department director and each public official with knowledge of specific areas of their work try to provide precise and accurate solutions to citizens’ needs. While creating a big picture and political leadership at the highest level, Bilbao takes into account a close-to-the-citizen approach in everything the city does such as creating a new bus line, or setting up an innovative district heating system.
Note: The City Innovation Snapshot (PDF version) was produced in 2019 and some aggregate findings have been updated with the latest survey results below.
Vision and approach to innovation capacity
Along with 50% of cities surveyed, Bilbao does not have an explicit innovation strategy. Similar to 24% of cities surveyed, Bilbao approaches innovation capacity in specific policy areas/domains.
Policy areas that Bilbao is focused on
Policy areas by number of cities
Innovation skills or roles
Bilbao does not have a dedicated team for innovation. Instead, the city has created an organization divided into small departments, each one of them with a technical director and a political councilor. On top of those departments, the leading councilor for one of them will act as a coordinator of several (up to 5) departments. Above them stands the Mayor. This organizational structure enables a citizen-centric approach, where micro-management level is taken care of their departments while having a common coordinated ground. This is also done for innovation projects and innovation strategy, where a three-level approach is created.
Innovation roles by number of cities
Terms Bilbao most associates with innovation
Bilbao's most common innovation activities
- 1
Taking risks or testing new ideas
- 2
Data-driven analytics/public data management
- 3
Engaging residents in new ways
- 4
Developing new solutions based on digital technologies
- 5
Organizational change within the municipality
- 6
Human-centered design
- 7
Rethinking your city’s approach to financing partnerships
Data not available.
How is innovation funded here?
Like 19% of cities surveyed, Bilbao does not have dedicated funding to support innovation capacity.
Top sources of funding
Bilbao has no reported sources of funding.
Activities being funded
Bilbao does not fund any specific activities.
47 cities
Launching or sustaining a project
79 cities
Idea generation & brainstorming
51 cities
Investing in digital systems
36 cities
Investing in physical infrastructure
30 cities
Paying for services
How is innovation measured?
Bilbao has developed partnerships to promote its innovation capacity with other public agencies, private firms, not-for-profit organizations, and city residents/resident associations.
To improve data use, the city has also developed data partnerships with the private sector, academia and think tanks to collect and analyze data, as well as with other cities. The city also has formal cooperative agreements and European co-funded projects including programs like Interreg, Horizon 2020 or Urbact.