Middle-space actors may be the secret ingredient
It was the autumn of 2023 that the World Economic Forum a new global effort was announced, Alliance for Urban Innovation, to support the development and growth of innovation ecosystems starting in Detroit, Ottawa and San Francisco. Since then, it has expanded its efforts to new cities, so that now some 40 innovation districts are involved in the cooperation, which now extends all over the world. It is intended to connect urban innovators and entrepreneurs with emerging markets and help build more resilient local economies. One idea is to be able to identify concrete lessons learned from local innovation efforts and elevate these stories to a global audience to inspire action and help scale up world-leading models and solutions.
Jibran Ahmeed is responsible for the areas of economic development and urban transformation at the World Economic Forum. He participated via link during the Italian research day in the world organized in Lund in May 2025 and spoke on the topic of innovation districts, among others, to the invited districts from Milano, Lund, Malmo and Helsingborg.
- The World Economic Forum focuses on public/private partnerships at the highest level and includes large companies, public organizations, non-profit organizations and civil society. It also includes innovation ecosystems, and innovation districts can also be included in it. The Alliance for Urban Innovation connects urban innovators and entrepreneurs with new markets while helping to build more resilient local economies, he says in a brief summary. We want to think about this in as holistic a way as possible.
During the meeting, Jibran Ahmed reflected on the history of innovation districts and took as a starting point how innovation clusters emerged when factories and warehouses came together next to each other during the Industrial Revolution. These early clusters were organized with very little thought to the experience of workers and the environmental impact of operations but were rather driven by production efficiency and proximity to resources. The mid-20th century saw a shift as innovations moved to suburban science parks, where, at least in the United States, people were often car-dependent and knowledge could be carefully protected inside walls and security gates.
Now Jibran Ahmed sees another shift.
- Something transformative has happened in the last decade. Innovation has found its way back into the urban neighborhoods and is driven by proximity and diversity, creativity and knowledge. Today's innovation districts are deliberately designed to mix people, preferably in walkable environments where scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, students and other people in the community interact not only on a formal level but also in informal settings. What is particularly striking about this development is how it reflects how we have moved away from a rigid hierarchy to more collaborative networks. We have moved from closed innovation to open systems, from pure economic success structures to a more holistic approach that includes social inclusion and environmental sustainability.
Jibran Ahmed highlighted some challenges that he sees for the innovation districts. It is:
*There is a tension between economic growth and inclusion. We need to ensure that Innovation Districts become engines of prosperity that benefit the surrounding community and do not become islands of privilege.
*How to balance the transition to hybrid working models? Many people working with knowledge have embraced the flexibility of work, but innovation thrives through unexpected discoveries when people from different disciplines can meet each other informally.
*There is an urgent necessity to create sustainability. Innovation districts must not only reduce the environmental footprint, they must also become living laboratories for climate solutions.
- With international partnerships, this is feasible, comments Jibran Ahmed. We see the Nordic approach where there is an emphasis on sustainability, public infrastructure and collaborative culture that complements the Italian way with excellent design, a pride in good craftsmanship and creative problem-solving. This is where my work with the Alliance for Urban Innovation comes in. Cross-border collaborations can create solutions that neither regions, cities nor districts can develop on their own. We already have a collaboration with the Milano Innovation District and I would like to see Swedish Innovation Districts also join to give us more perspectives.
Future by Lund also had the opportunity to ask two more questions after the event.
As you work together in the Alliance for Urban Innovation, how important is it for you to build trust between stakeholders?
- Trust is the foundation of successful innovation ecosystems. When we bring together different stakeholders with different goals, collaboration simply does not happen without trust. We build trust through four key approaches:
• Transparency about everyone's motives and limitations from the start,
• Progressive achievement through concrete projects, initiatives or events that generate “small profits”.
• A neutral facilitator - as the World Economic Forum, we position ourselves as honest brokers without benefiting any stakeholder group.
• Relationship building beyond formal encounters, such as site visits or cultural experiences, creating opportunities for personal connections.
The meeting in Lund included several innovation districts and you are working with the Alliance of Urban Innovation. What do you think is the benefit of having organizations like these to work in the space between other actors?
- Organizations like ours play a crucial role as “innovation intermediaries” with three key advantages. First, we are translators between different worlds. Universities, businesses and governments all speak different languages and work on different timescales -- we help translate between these institutional logics. Second, we provide continuity through political cycles, leadership changes and economic fluctuations. The development of innovation districts is long-term, and intermediaries keep up the pace and preserve knowledge. Third, we create neutral platforms for experiments. The collaboration methods that Future by Lund, for example, develops cannot come from any single institution - you have the flexibility to test new approaches without institutional constraints. In our experience, these intermediary organizations are often the “secret ingredient” that determines whether innovation districts truly flourish or just remain co-located buildings. It creates the social infrastructure that is just as important as the physical infrastructure.