Sweden
Hans Lindberg
129,000 (2019)
Johan Gammelgard, Peter Juneblad, Malin Lagervall
Anticipate and manage future challenges
Save costs and improve efficiency within the public sector
Improve resident outcomes
Dedicated funding
Dedicated innovation team
Culture of innovation in city
Engagement with partners
Support from outside city administration
Leadership from Mayor
The gendered landscape tour creatively showcases the municipality’s efforts in transforming Umeå while simultaneously addressing gender inequality. The tour demonstrates successful transformations in physical urban planning where gender perspective is incorporated, while also addressing a range of other gender issues in the city. With Umeå as a starting point, the guided bus tour highlights the gendered power structures throughout the built environment, and how they can be understood and transformed. This innovative method is the first of its kind in Europe and was awarded the URBACT Good practice label in 2017.
Along with 50% of cities surveyed, Umea does not have an explicit innovation strategy. Similar to more than half of cities surveyed, Umea approaches innovation capacity both from a holistic/macro level, as well as in specific policy areas.
Umeå has a number of innovation projects within the area of sustainable and environmental city development (e.g. an innovative integrated mobility system).
Umeå has both an innovation department at the City Manager’s office and several innovation-related teams in different departments. The city has 15 staff working on building innovation capacity.
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, Umea has dedicated funding to support innovation capacity.
Umeå’s funding for innovation capacity is generally directed towards enhancing citizens’ participation and dialogue. Similar to 61% of participating cities in the 2020 survey, Umeå'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.
Umeå has developed partnerships to promote innovation capacity with other public agencies, private firms, not-for-profit organizations, city residents/resident associations as well as other international partners and cities.
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.