On November 5th, the Civitas Novus: Urban Innovation Assessment Report, jointly developed by the Guangzhou Institute for Urban Innovation (GIUI) and the Institute for Urban Research University of Pennsylvania (Penn IUR), was officially released at  "Civitas Novus - Bringing Urban Innovation to Scale". As a side event of the 12th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF12), it aims to present the latest achievements of the Guangzhou Award in urban innovation research to global cities, discussing the opportunities and challenges of mainstreaming and bringing urban innovation to scale. Lei Weiju, Deputy Director-General, Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Guangzhou Municipality; Eugenie L. Birch, Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research and Education Co-Director, Penn Institute for Urban Research; and Mehmet Duman, Secretary General, United Cities and Local Governments Middle East and West Asia Section (UCLG-MEWA), attended the event and delivered speeches.

Lei Weiju said that Guangzhou has long been proactively promoting global urban governance and sustainable development, fostering inter-city exchanges and cooperation through the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation and the Global Mayors’ Forum, and providing support to the cooperation between the GIUI and the University of Pennsylvania to establish the Civitas Novus, assisting local governments in transitioning to sustainable development. He emphasized that cities with different social systems and in different stages of development have broad cooperation space in urban governance, and cities worldwide should promote exchanges and progress together to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "Adhering to the principles that innovative practices originated from the world, achievements shared by the world, and platform operation with the participation of the world, Guangzhou will work together with its global city partners, continuing to bring success to the Guangzhou Award, providing a broader exchange platform, richer governance experience, and higher quality public goods for global cities, and promoting the joint implementation of the Global Development Initiative, so as to better assist in realizing the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and make new and greater contributions to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind" said Lei Weiju.

Nicholas You, Executive Director of GIUI, released the Civitas Novus: Urban Innovation Assessment Report. This innovative workshop methodology, based on the analysis of over 1,000 best practices from the Guangzhou Award, is designed to enhance the innovation capacity of urban governance. The research team has developed a series of scales containing the core competencies of urban innovation, helping city managers to understand and improve the innovation ecosystem of cities comprehensively, and to design effective innovation strategies from the dimensions of innovation philosophy, resource management, response to challenges, and transformation of results. In September this year, a pilot workshop of the Civitas Novus was successfully held in Kocaeli, Turkey, showing its effectiveness and giving valuable feedback for the optimization of the methodology.

During the roundtable, Dyan Currie, Co-Chair of the UN-Habitat Stakeholder Advisory Group; Sara Hoeflich, Assistant Secretary General of UCLG; Lara Kinneir, Associate Professor of London Interdisciplinary School and Paulo Moraes, Executive Secretary of Security of the city of Recife shared their insights into urban innovation through some best practices covering policy-making, project implementation, and ecological conservation. In addition, the discussion also focused on how to build and optimize an urban innovation ecosystem so as to stimulate innovation vitality and develop innovation models that can go to scale.

Click to read the Civitas Novus: Urban Innovation Assessment Report:

http://o.guangzhouaward.org/uploads/20241107/fccc0b03dc6dd2fb9c4014be24b14ca5.pdf

The World Urban Forum (WUF), established by the United Nations in 2001, is the premier global conference on sustainable urbanization. The Forum brings together participants from around the world to discuss the major urban challenges nowadays. The twelfth World Urban Forum (WUF12) was held in Cairo, Egypt, from November 4th to 8th, 2024, entitled "It All Starts at Home: Local Actions for Sustainable Cities and Communities", focusing on building strong coalitions to address key global challenges posed by the global housing crisis and climate change.