11th Urban COVID-19 monitor

As the world grapples with massive challenges—climate change, rapid urbanisation, digital disruption, and growing inequality—some cities are not waiting for top-down solutions. They are rolling up their sleeves and experimenting with new ways to improve life for everyone, block by block. Amsterdam is one of those cities.

That’s why I was proud to share Amsterdam InChanges approach to smart, inclusive urban innovation at the #CIPPCD2025 conference in Aveiro.

Through our open innovation platform, <strong>Amsterdam InChange</strong>, the city has become a global leader in turning lofty global ambitions into practical, local action. But Amsterdam’s model isn’t built around flashy tech or utopian blueprints. Instead, it’s grounded in an essential question: How can we use innovation to improve people’s everyday lives?

Local Action for Global Challenges
Amsterdam understands that the climate crisis, digital transition, and social inequality can’t be solved by government alone—or by technology alone. That’s why it launched Amsterdam Smart City in 2009 as a public-private partnership. What began as small-scale energy-saving pilots has grown into a community of over 8,500 members, coordinating more than 300 projects across the city and beyond.
The approach is rooted in co-creation. Citizens, companies, knowledge institutions, and government actors come together to design, test, and scale solutions that serve the public good. The values that guide the network are clear: people first, openness, transparency, learning by doing, and public value.

The Doughnut as a Compass
Amsterdam was the first city in the world to embrace Doughnut Economics as a guiding framework. The “City Doughnut,” developed with economist Kate Raworth, helps policymakers balance the city’s ecological footprint with the social foundations that all citizens need: housing, education, health, equity, and more. It’s a tool to align every local decision with both planetary boundaries and human dignity.
This framework has inspired circular construction strategies, neighbourhood energy co-ops, and more inclusive procurement policies. It shows that global concepts can become real when grounded in local practice.

Making Innovation Inclusive
One of Amsterdam’s core beliefs is that smart cities must be <strong>inclusive cities</strong>. That means tackling issues like <strong>mobility poverty</strong>, where rising transport costs and digital-only services make it harder for low-income or elderly residents to get around.
Through the <strong>Mobility Poverty Challenge</strong>, Amsterdam partnered with the Province of North Holland and researchers from DRIFT to understand where and how exclusion occurs—and to design better public mobility systems. Pilot ideas like a “Mobility Wallet” (a subsidy for essential travel) and more inclusive digital apps emerged from real conversations with affected residents.
The same inclusive mindset guides Amsterdam’s digital transformation. In the suburb of Haarlemmermeer, officials flipped the script on e-government. Instead of asking citizens to become “digitally skilled,” they asked how government systems could become more <strong>humane</strong>. This led to simplified interfaces, better access to services, and ultimately more trust.

Responsible Tech and Energy from the Ground Up
Tech transparency is another pillar of the Amsterdam model. The city runs the world’s first <strong>Algorithm Register</strong>, giving the public insight into how AI and automated systems are used in services—from traffic enforcement to housing applications. Anyone can access this register, offer feedback, and better understand how digital decisions are made.
In the energy space, the city supports both bold innovation and careful upscaling. At the <strong>Johan Cruijff ArenA</strong>, used electric vehicle batteries store solar energy, powering concerts and matches with clean backup power. At the same time, a coalition of partners led by Amsterdam InChange is working to scale up Local Energy Systems by collecting lessons learned and creating a toolkit for community-led energy.

What Makes It Work?
If there’s one secret to Amsterdam’s success, it’s the governance model: small, neutral facilitation teams guiding large multi-stakeholder coalitions, anchored by public trust and shared purpose. Regular Demo Days allow project teams to showcase progress, get feedback, and adapt. This culture of transparency and iteration helps avoid the so-called “innovation graveyard,” where pilot projects go to die.
The city also embraces failure—as long as it’s shared and learned from. Reports like “Organising Smart City Projects” openly list lessons, from the importance of strong leadership to the need for viable business models and continuous user involvement.

An Invitation to Other Cities
Amsterdam’s smart city is not a blueprint—it’s a mindset. Start with your biggest local challenge. Bring the right people together. Make space for experimentation. Build bridges between local and global. And, above all, put citizens at the centre.
As international smart city ambassador Frans-Anton Vermast puts it: “We’re not just creating technology for cities—we’re creating better cities for people.”

The III International Conference on Public Policies and Data Science

On June 12th 2025 we will celebrate the 7th edition of the international Outdoor Office Day. It’s an open invitation to take your work outside, reconnect with the surrounding urban nature around your office.

This year’s theme is 'Connecting with each other’: with your direct colleagues, colleagues from other departments, neighbours, or external relations. Please join the growing network of individuals and companies that take their work outside more and more often. Get inspired whilst you spend time surrounded by urban nature. This enhances new and meaningful relationships, stimulates the flow of good ideas and supports the forging of valuable collaborations.

Please meet our partners and participants:

https://www.outdoorofficeday.nl/participants

If in Amsterdam we invite for wanderwalk with sustainable leaders. Join us in Amsterdamse Bos to discuss your dilemma's, learn from each other and connect.

Have you obtained a master's degree in social and/or organization sciences, and would you like to study innovation and change? Then consider joining our interdisciplinary team with a PhD research on accelerating sustainability transitions!

This PhD position is part of an interdisciplinary team of three PhD researchers, one postdoc, and two senior researchers in the project ‘EXTRA’: <em>From EXperiment to sustainable change: TRAnsformative methodologies for innovation and learning</em>. EXTRA is a collaboration between multiple universities and public and private partners to research and advance physical and experimental environments as enabling methodologies for learning and innovation, also known as living labs.

Living labs are applied by various change-makers, including governmental actors, industry partners, NGOs, researchers, and citizens, to co-create innovations. However, while much experimentation and innovation occur, achieving long-term systemic change remains difficult. Therefore, the main purpose of EXTRA is to amplify the transformative power of living labs with novel insights, instruments, and human capacities, thus enabling change-makers to make sustainable changes and societal impacts. 

In the consortium this PhD research will focus on the organization of innovation to accelerate sustainability transition. More specifically, by gathering knowledge and analyses across different fields and cases, this research will identify and validate (inter)organizational approaches, interventions, and business models to overcome barriers and enable the public-private collaboration needed for embedding, translating, and scaling innovations.

For more information about the project, please visit: https://www.nwo.nl/nieuws/financiering-voor-onderzoeksproject-over-fysieke-experimentele-omgevingen ; https://www.tudelft.nl/2024/bk/nwo-financiering-voor-innovatief-onderzoek-naar-fysieke-experimentele-omgevingen.