The open call is seeking challenges that can form the basis of an open innovation competition, meaning cities and their partners should be open to a variety of different approaches to solving the problem, and be willing to work with new partners (e.g. SMEs, technologists, other solution-providers) to solve them. We strongly believe that the best solutions come from unexpected places so a capacity to work with a diverse range of stakeholders is critical.

A suitable challenge for an open innovation competition:

• Has a clear goal that’s open to different organisations using different approaches
• Would benefit from new people working on it (e.g. there is not enough innovation in the field, or there is expertise from other fields or contexts you want to bring in)
• Would be able to attract new people to work on it (e.g. it would create business opportunities for them, or you are able to offer a route to procure the solutions)
• Would support new work (not just fund existing or planned efforts)
• Can create solutions that have a sustainable business model

For more about what makes a good challenge, see Nesta’s Challenge Prizes Practice Guide.

We want to know if solving this challenge will make a significant contribution towards reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions – whilst promoting other social benefits. We’d like to hear about your ambition for solving the challenge, the kind of metrics you’d like to track and solutions you imagine coming forward. For example, consider the SDG 11 targets and indicators and initiatives that cut across sectors, such as Viable Cities’ four focus areas. 

We also want you to consider scaling, transferability and feasibility of potential solutions – is this a challenge that exists in other cities, and therefore could potential solutions be scaled and adopted elsewhere? Are solutions feasible in the near future? Is there application to cities in less developed countries?

We are seeking cities to partner with us to run a challenge and invite problem-solvers to compete, to test and demonstrate solutions, and bring the most successful ones to scale. 

We want to know if your city has a good understanding of the challenge and what it will take to solve it, and if your city can devote some time and resources to helping us run this challenge. This can mean political capital to support the challenge, human capital to help run it, financial capital to help fund it. We are interested in hearing how you envision collaborating with us, for instance which individuals or city departments we can expect to work with; and whether you propose to work with us as a consortium with local partners. 

Note that we are seeking a diverse portfolio of cities, including cities from both developing and less developed contexts. Our expectations will vary depending on the resources you have available.

Depending on the nature of your challenge and the anticipated solutions, a challenge in your city will likely require a real-world testbed: environments where innovation is tested in collaboration between users, innovators and, often, regulators and other institutions in the environment where the technology will be implemented. 

A testbed can be a physical place in the city but it doesn’t have to be – for instance it could instead involve access to datasets to experiment with, access to city assets or infrastructure, regulatory permission to test out an innovation, or an expedited route to public procurement. We are interested in hearing how you would approach testing innovation or hosting pilots or demos in your city. For more background, consider Nesta’s report, Testing Innovation in the Real World.