Connected Places

In episode 16, "Accelerating the UK active travel market" we explored one of the most exciting areas of growth and opportunity within urban mobility, and why it matters so much to the Connected Places Catapult, and the future of healthy, connected and net zero places.

Active travel is about creating options for us to move more. This can have a massive impact on our physical and mental health, the air quality in our overly congested cities by getting more commuters out of cars and onto bikes and footpaths, and the UK's collective effort of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In this episode we kick off a series of conversations we've been having with businesses, place leaders and experts in active travel. We ask what seizing this potentially huge opportunity for economic growth and public health and wellbeing looks like around the country. How do we design our cities for more active travel? How do we ensure that change is led by communities and accessible to all? And where are the opportunities, at home and abroad, for government and industry to get ahead of the curve?

We begin by speaking to Dame Sarah Storey, one of the most decorated British athletes of all time and the Active Travel Commissioner for the Sheffield City Region. We also hear from Will Butler-Adams, CEO of Brompton Bikes, one of Britain's best known cycling brands and sold all over the world.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes

To find out more about the Sheffield City Region's active travel programme, check out their Active Travel Implementation Plan, as well as the region's interactive Active Travel Map.

You can click on these links to read the two UK government reports that are referenced in the episode – Gear Change: A Bold Vision for Cycling and Transport, and Decarbonising Transport: Setting The Challenge.

To read and download the Catapult's Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

On the 23rd June we're running an event on Connecting Homes for Healthy Ageing as part of our multi-year Homes for Healthy Ageing Programme which is contributing towards the UK Government's goal of supporting older people to live at home independently for 5+ years longer. We'll be exploring the barriers and opportunities for leveraging innovation to overcome the existing healthy ageing challenges in the UK. To register for free, click here.

On the 1st July we'll also be launching our UK Cities Climate Investment Commission, in partnership with Core Cities and London Councils. We'll be presenting some early-stage findings on the estimated Net Zero investment need of the UK's Cities. It's a piece of work that we've commissioned in the run-up to the COP26 Climate Change Summit in Glasgow later this year. To register for free, click here.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Cycles of technologies and innovations have been connecting and shaping the places where we live and work for centuries – from aqueduct and sewerage systems through to the advent of the motor vehicle, railways and the skyscraper. But the digital age has accelerated the pace of change more than any other, and it has not only brought with it a slew of new technologies, but also a profound and complex set of risks and dilemmas that governments, businesses and citizens are having to navigate.

In episode 18, "Connected and Secure Places: A Conversation with Matt Warman MP" we discussed the secure and connected places of tomorrow with the UK Government's Minister for Digital Infrastructure. In this episode we ask how the next cycle of new technologies are shaping these places, and what place leaders, businesses and individuals need to do to be ahead of the curve. What will 5G connectivity bring to our towns and cities, and at a time of rising mistrust in public institutions and even wild conspiracy theories, how do place leaders bring citizens with them on a journey of change? How do we ensure that our national digital infrastructure is safe and secure, and where is the balance between protecting civil liberties such as the right to privacy, and creating new data ecosystems that enable ground-breaking innovation?

In this episode, Prof. Greg Clark CBE, Chair of the Connected Places Catapult speaks to Dr. Alison Vincent, a technical thought leader in the field of technology, innovation and global business. Throughout her 30 year career Alison has held senior positions at Cisco, HSBC, IBM and Micro Focus. Among many of her hats, she's a Member of the Court of the University of Southampton, an Ambassador for Women In Science and Engineering (WISE), a Fellow of the British Computer Society and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and a Non Exec Director on the Board of the Connected Places Catapult. Alison's experience and expertise covers cybersecurity, digital strategy, research and development, product management and mergers and acquisitions. She holds a PhD in Cryptography from London University.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email us at: [email protected]

If you're interested in the often tricky question of how to procure innovation, come along to the next event in our Challenging Procurement Series: Co-creating Innovation which is being held on 14th June. You'll get a chance to hear case studies and best practices in procurement, and learn why citizen-led projects are often cited as a powerful tool by innovative public sector organisations. To register, click here.

Applications for the HS2 Accelerator are now open. The programme in partnership with HS2 and Connected Places Catapult is looking for five SMEs to provide innovative digital solutions to cut carbon and increase construction site safety and security as part of Europe's largest infrastructure project. To find out more about a support and information webinar we're holding on 15th June, click here.

On the 23rd June we're running an event on Connecting Homes for Healthy Ageing as part of our multi-year Homes for Healthy Ageing Programme which is contributing towards the UK Government's goal of supporting older people to live at home independently for 5+ years longer. We'll be exploring the barriers and opportunities for leveraging innovation to overcome the existing healthy ageing challenges in the UK. To register for free, click here.

In this next part of our series on Hubs of Innovation, we return to the question of how innovation happens in a place. What is it about a district, a neighbourhood, or a corridor that makes it possible for innovation to flourish? And how can a deeper understanding of the innovation economy inform our thinking about how to create better connections within and between places across the UK?

In this episode Prof. Greg Clark speaks to Chris Oglesby, CEO of Bruntwood, a property company that employs over 800 people and owns over £1.4 billion of commercial assets and 100 properties across the city regions of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham and Cambridge. Bruntwood provides everything from coworking spaces and meeting rooms, through to serviced and managed offices for all sorts of innovation labs, hubs, and tech spaces.

We ask how the buildings which host the innovation economy can shape a successful innovation location in how they're designed and serviced. Do you have to be a smart company yourself if you're a property company that's hosting innovators? And given Chris' strong involvement in shaping the innovation economy of Greater Manchester, we explore the link between the city regions across the North West of England and the UK government's ambitious plans to level up the national economy.

As well as running Bruntwood, Chris is involved in a number of public and private partnerships, including the Manchester Climate Change Forum, the Manchester Oxford Road Corridor, the Greater Manchester Enterprise Partnership and the North Powerhouse Partnership. He is Interim Chair of Innovation Greater Manchester which brings together business, science academia and government.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you would like to learn more about Bruntwood and the buildings, workspaces, innovation and science facilities that they own, let and manage, click here.

Our Hubs of Innovation series comes out of two reports that the Catapult recently published, 1) Hubs of Innovation which looks at the role of innovation hubs in the COVID-adjusted economy, and 2) the accompanying Playbook for Place Leaders, a practical guide for how to establish or grow an innovation hub. Both reports are free to download on our website.

If you're interested the often tricky question of how to procure innovation, come along to the next event in our Challenging Procurement Series: Co-creating Innovation which is being held on 14th June. You'll get a chance to hear case studies and best practices in procurement, and learn why citizen-led projects are often cited as a powerful tool by innovative public sector organisations. To register, click here.

To register for our next Virtual Connections Café on 9th June, click here. These SME innovation support webinars explore developments and opportunities in the built environment and mobility sectors, as well as offering support and guidance to growing businesses.

Follow the show!

Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

If the UK is going to hit its net zero targets by 2050 we need to decarbonise across every sector of the economy – that includes shifting from fossil fuel consumption to electrification and other sustainable energy sources like hydrogen. We've made good progress on decarbonising the power sector in the UK, but more needs to be done to mainstream renewables such as wind and solar.

Yet it's not just the fossil fuel consuming machines that move us around which contribute a huge amount to our carbon emissions, the same is also true of the buildings in which we live and work. So the question of how we decarbonise the most carbon-reliant sectors like transport and the built environment speaks to a bigger question: if we are to increase our electricity demand we will only decarbonise if that electricity is being generated from low carbon sources.

In this episode we ask what the barriers and the enablers to that net zero future look like, and what emerging technologies are mostly likely to help us achieve it. But we also explore another power source that gets us from A to B which is so often untapped in our towns and cities: human power. As we saw in episode 16 "Accelerating the UK's active travel market" the world of active travel is now at a tipping point as new technologies, applications, business models and digital platforms are revolutionising how we'll get around the connected places of tomorrow. So as a global pandemic ushered in a massive uptick in walking, cycling, running and even scooting, is this an opportunity to rethink and reimagine our net zero future?

In this episode, Prof. Greg Clark CBE, Chair of the Connected Places Catapult speaks to Lucy Yu, CEO of the Centre for Net Zero (backed by Octopus Energy), Senior Advisor to Voi Technology, and Non-Executive Director on the Connected Places Catapult's Board. Lucy is a business leader who is well embedded in the UK's tech and innovation ecosystem and over the years her work has focused on artificial intelligence, future mobility, open data and open source, regulating high risk technologies, and the social impact of disruptive technology. She's led commercial operations, policy and research functions for several high-growth, globally-renowned tech start-ups, including two unicorns. She's also worked ob tech policy and regulation for the UK government, the European Commission, and the United Nations.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you're interested the often tricky question of how to procure innovation, come along to the next event in our Challenging Procurement Series: Co-creating Innovation which is being held on 14th June. You'll get a chance to hear case studies and best practices in procurement, and learn why citizen-led projects are often cited as a powerful tool by innovative public sector organisations. To register, click here.

To register for our next Virtual Connections Café on 9th June, click here. These SME innovation support webinars explore developments and opportunities in the built environment and mobility sectors, as well as offering support and guidance to growing businesses.

Follow the show!

Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

When we think about how places change, we often think in the short term over single business cycles, Mayoral terms or a city's immediate response to crises and formative events. But stepping back and taking the longer view can also be helpful, especially in light of the profound changes that that have shaped England's cities in recent decades.

In this episode we explore the story of one of England's most iconic city regions – Greater Manchester – with one of the city's most influential civic leaders over the last 25 years, Sir Howard Bernstein. We ask what Manchester's last quarter century might tell us about the next. How the reforms to local government over this period such as Metro Mayors and City Deals have helped to shape a "Manchester Model" and what the next phase in the city's devolution journey might look like. What the ingredients for success have been in shaping Manchester's innovation economy, and how the vision of connected places and digital connectivity is at the heart of future growth, resilience and prosperity.

Prof. Greg Clark CBE, Chair of the Connected Places Catapult speaks to Sir Howard Bernstein, former Chief Executive of Manchester City Council and former Head of the Paid Service of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Sir Howard led a team which oversaw the regeneration of the city and transformational economic change over 25 years. Among many other hats, Sir Howard is an Honorary Prof. of Politics at Manchester University, he sits on the Board of Health Innovation Manchester and he's a Strategic Advisor to Deloitte.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To learn more about the Manchester City Region and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority you can read Our People Our Place: The Greater Manchester Strategy, as well as a White Paper on the The Manchester Model of unified public services.

If you're interested the often tricky question of how to procure innovation, come along to the next event in our Challenging Procurement Series: Co-creating Innovation which is being held on 14th June. You'll get a chance to hear case studies and best practices in procurement, and learn why citizen-led projects are often cited as a powerful tool by innovative public sector organisations. To register, click here.

To register for our next Virtual Connections Café on 9th June, click here. These SME innovation support webinars explore developments and opportunities in the built environment and mobility sectors, as well as offering support and guidance to growing businesses.

Follow the show!

Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

The Queen's Speech this week – which sets out the UK Government's legislative programme for Parliament – promised to level up opportunities across all parts of the United Kingdom, supporting jobs, businesses and economic growth, as well as addressing the impact of the COVID pandemic on public services.

Levelling up the UK economy is an ambitious vision which goes to the heart of many of the structural and spatial challenges that towns and cities face. How do we create more jobs, growth and opportunities across the country, and not just in our largest cities or the South East corner of England? How can digitisation, the innovation economy and better connected places help us to address disparities between and within places? What next for devolution in a country that is still one of the most centralised in the world? And what do we need to do differently in the future to create a country that's not just more connected, but also more competitive, resilient and sustainable?

In this episode the Chair of the Catapult, Prof. Greg Clark speaks to Lord Kerslake, Chair of the Peabody Group and formerly the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, Head of the Civil Service and Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council and the London Borough of Hounslow. Lord Kerslake has worked at the highest levels of local and national government and in 2015 was made a cross-bench Peer in the House of Lords.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

Find out more about the UK2070 Commission, an independent inquiry into city and regional inequalities, as well as policy and spatial issues related to the UK's long-term development.

You can also learn more about Laptops For Kids which Lord Kerslake mentions – the charity that facilitates the donation and distribution of used digital devices, enabling children from disadvantaged backgrounds to have access to the technology they need to participate in remote learning.

Follow the show!

Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

We've all had to find new and creative ways to stay connected over the last year. But one of the most important has been maintaining our digital connectivity.

The pandemic has shone a spotlight on all aspects of our infrastructure. It's been a stark reminder that in the 21st Century digital connectivity, such as high-speed broadband, is just as much a critical utility for our economy as water, electricity or gas. And as our COVID-adjusted economy begins to recover, attention is refocussing on the importance of not just maintaining Britain's digital infrastructure but upgrading and expanding it across the country too.

So what does this mean for our towns and cities and how we think about the infrastructure of a 'connected place'? How can the vision of digitally connected places help to level up the UK economy? Where are the opportunities for UK companies in all of this? And how can we ensure that cybersecurity is at the heart of our ambitions so that our digital infrastructure is both connected and secure?

In this episode the Chair of the Catapult, Prof. Greg Clark speaks to Matt Warman MP, Minister for Digital Infrastructure at the UK's Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Matt has responsibility for cybersecurity, tech growth policy and artificial intelligence, foreign direct investment and Building Digital UK.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To find out more about Project Gigabit, the UK Government's £5 billion plan to bring fast, reliable broadband to everywhere in the UK, click here.

To learn about DCMS's Ten Tech priorities for building back better, safer and stronger from COVID, click here.

The National Cyber Security Centre - which provides advice and support to business, government and the public on reducing the UK's cybersecurity risk – has published a new set of cyber security principles for connected places. You can learn more here.

Follow the show!

Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

How does innovation happen in a place? What does it take to create and sustain an innovation hub? What is it about a district, a neighbourhood, a cluster or a corridor that makes it possible for innovation to flourish?

In the 2021 Budget, the UK Chancellor, Rishi Sunak MP announced a commitment "to stimulating private sector investment to create jobs, develop hubs of innovation, and revitalise local areas and regions across every part of the UK". The innovation economy has become one of the defining features of the economic cycle, especially the role of innovation in the post-pandemic recovery and the wider 'levelling up' agenda. Yet there are stark differences between the innovation activity in different parts of the UK, and there is renewed focus on enabling the innovation economy to flourish right across the country.

This is the first in a series of episodes where we'll be bringing you stories from across the UK and around the world of how innovation happens in places; creative quarters in inner city neighbourhoods, science parks on the edge of town, industry clusters, ports and converted buildings. We'll be speaking to place leaders and businesses about what we need to be doing to create innovation hubs which can become places of discovery, growth and job creation.

Our Hubs of Innovation podcast series comes out of two reports that the Catapult recently published, 1) Hubs of Innovation which looks at the role of innovation hubs in the COVID-adjusted economy, and 2) the accompanying Playbook for Place Leaders, a practical guide for how to establish or grow an innovation hub. Both reports are free to download on our website.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Active travel is one of the most exciting areas of growth and opportunity within urban mobility - the kind of getting from A to B where your legs, arms and heart have to do their fair share of the work, rather than a massive energy consuming machine.

When we think about what more active travel in places means, it's about creating more options for us to move more. This can have a massive impact on our physical and mental health, the air quality in our overly congested cities by getting more commuters out of cars and onto bikes and footpaths, and the UK's collective effort of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

But active travel is also about seizing a potentially huge economic opportunity.

This is the first in a series of episodes where we begin to explore the opportunities for UK companies in the global market for active travel products and solutions. Throughout the series we'll be hearing from leading figures in business, local government, academia and the wider active travel world. We begin in this episode with Neil Fulton, our Chief Delivery Officer who's leading a new active travel programme, as well as Catapult Associate, Scott Cain who's a passionate advocate for the benefits that active travel can offer people, places and the wider economy.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Follow the show!

Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

Show notes

You can click on these links to read the two UK government reports that are referenced in the episode – Gear Change: A Bold Vision for Cycling and Transport, and Decarbonising Transport: Setting The Challenge.

To read and download our Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

You can also read and download free of charge the Catapult's new report on Hubs of Innovation which looks at the role of districts, corridors and quarters as hubs in the COVID-adjusted economy, as well as the accompanying Playbook for Place Leaders, a practical guide for establishing or growing an innovation hub.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

In this episode Prof. Greg Clark meets Paul Doney, Director of Innovation & Continuous Improvement at Highways England – the highway, traffic and street authority that manages 4,300 miles of motorways and major A-roads across England.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic the reduction in traffic volume on England's strategic road network was huge. But as the economy now starts to recover it's important to remain focussed on those medium to long term challenges that haven't gone away. What do the UK's net zero ambitions mean for England's strategic road network? What contribution is innovation making on that journey and where are the opportunities for businesses? How can digitisation and new and emerging technologies help to connect not just people but places?

Paul Doney has had a distinguished career as a civil engineer and a background in contracting, engineering and local government, Paul joined the Highways Agency in 2003 and more recently has been leading the innovation agenda at Highways England with a strong focus on customer value.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Follow the show!

Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

Show notes

Conversation topics/themes:

• The impact the pandemic has had on the road network in England, and changing mobility patterns over the last year
• The bigger trends that pre-date COVID which are shaping the future of England's strategic road network, and how Highways England preparing for that future.
• The role that digitisation plays when thinking about the road networks of the future, and the new and emerging technologies; how such technologies can connect not just people, but places.
• How Highways England is responding to the innovation challenges that these trends and technologies are bringing with them, particularly the question of how a public body can work more creatively with researchers and SMEs.
• What the net zero agenda means for Highways England and the strategic road network

To read and download our report on 'Transition to Zero Emission Transport: A Pathway for Long Haul Heavy Goods Vehicles', which investigates the options for decarbonising road freight, click here.

To find out more about the first tranche of funding for zero-emission 'freight trials' in the UK, you can learn more in a briefing webinar that was recently run by KTN on the competition by clicking here.

To read and download the Highways England report, 'Connecting the Country: Planning for the Long Term', click here.

Our wider innovation programme with the UK Department of Transport also includes a number of case studies from drones and the future of aviation, to new innovations in micro-mobility and active travel.

Our next Virtual Connections Café is taking place on Wednesday the 14th April. These cafes offer practical support to businesses and they're a great way of plugging into new networks. Our next one will be exploring some of the best practice that's out there to help SMEs and local authorities procuring new solutions at city scale.

To register for our upcoming webinar on 'Innovative financing's potential to drive sustainability in the built environment sector' which is being held on 31st March, click here.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!