Canada
Valérie Plante
2,030,000 (2018)
Stéphane Guidoin
Improve service delivery
Improve resident outcomes
Anticipate and manage future challenges
Dedicated funding
Focus on measurement
Dedicated innovation team
Support from outside city administration
Human resource support
Leadership from Mayor
An initiative currently in its pilot phase, CityStudio Montreal serves as a bridge connecting city staff expertise and student creativity to tackle complex urban issues. The initiative matches urban problems identified by city staff with courses at partner universities, providing public servants and students with a chance to work together to co-create and prototype their innovative solutions. CityStudio Montreal serves as a unique method to strengthen civic participation and resident engagement by creating meaningful collaboration aimed at improving the community.
Along with 50% of cities surveyed, Montreal does not have an explicit innovation strategy. Similar to more than half of cities surveyed, Montreal approaches innovation capacity both from a holistic/macro level, as well as in specific policy areas.
Transport/mobility: The Montreal Urban Innovation Lab is currently coordinating several transportation and mobility pilot projects. The autonomous vehicle pilot project aims to acquire the necessary knowledge of new types of vehicles that could impact the way we view mobility and use vehicles in the city. Beyond the simple technological evaluation of the maturity of this type of vehicle, their objective is to determine ways in which these vehicles can contribute to improving the urban ecosystem from a sustainable mobility perspective while meeting residents' needs. Through the Smart City Challenge which the city won in 2019, Montreal also experiments with several types of very local mobility projects as well as an Integrated Mobility project which aims to promote user autonomy and facilitate mobility with a new open digital platform. It combines many modes of transportation already available in the Greater Montreal Area and allows users to easily access these various services, thanks to a simplified pricing approach. It also includes implementing a single mobility account, linked to a shared civic identity.
Digital governance: For several years now, the Lab has been working towards greater accessibility of data by managing an open data platform and accompanying different services of the city toward open data. The idea is to promote the collective use of data as well as the transparency of the government apparatus both internally and externally. Montreal support data users and encourage the community to leverage the city's data in order to generate the maximum amount of social and economic value.
Situated in the City Manager’s office, Montreal Urban Innovation Lab is divided into 3 units: Open Data, Smart Cities, and Innovation and Experimentation which consist of 18 staff.
Taking risks or testing new ideas
Data-driven analytics/public data management
Engaging residents in new ways
Developing new solutions based on digital technologies
Organizational change within the municipality
Human-centered design
Rethinking your city’s approach to financing partnerships
Like 81% of cities surveyed, Montreal has dedicated funding to support innovation capacity.
Similar to 61% of participating cities in the 2020 survey, Montreal's funding for innovation capacity is also directed towards training staff and building capacity*.
*"Training staff and building capacity" is not an option in the 2018 survey, while "Launching or sustaining a project" is not an option in the 2020 survey.
Montreal has developed partnerships to promote 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.