Great collaboration to secure the future of Barcelona
The City of Barcelona has been organizing the REACT conference since 2021. The conference is a meeting place for Barcelona's various economic sectors where they can reflect on the city's projects and future economic development together with local, national and international experts and leaders.
- The REACT conference is both a follow-up and a look ahead to see what is waiting around the corner, says Peter Kisch. Here you talk about issues related to innovation, urban development and sustainability while discussing, for example, the development of high tech — it will be a mix but the common thread is that everything is about Barcelona's development. They also have a clear idea that development is for all Barcelonabans.
Barcelona works with the Barcelona Green Deal, through which it creates a city that adapts to the challenges of the transition to a green and digital economy with projects, initiatives, facilities and services in all neighborhoods. The goal is to shape the Barcelona you want by 2030, which is an innovative, sustainable and equitable city.
Why did Future by Lund participate in REACT?
- Barcelona is one of Europe's top places for work with innovation districts (read more about innovation district here). We have had cooperation with the City of Barcelona, with partners in Barcelona and been at the city's events for many years,” says Katarina Scott. That's why it was interesting to go there and take note of their summary of what they do. One thing that I saw that we can bring into the work of building a good innovation district in Lund is how Barcelona mixes hard and soft parts, that is, they mix infrastructure and technology with know how and who will operate on the site.
Barcelona has been driving its development for a long time by identifying development opportunities within an industry or on a theme. For example, it could be in media/tech, programming or film. Then companies in the sector, the real estate industry and the representatives of the city gather in one room so that together they can develop the city based on that particular issue. After that, construction plans and development are started.
- This way of working is different from what we often do in Sweden, says Peter Kisch. In Barcelona, content comes first and I think that way is better when you work with innovation. By curating content in certain areas of innovation, Barcelona has attracted major players and international investment.
What did you see that would be appropriate to bring to Lund?
- The first is that we will try to copy their working methods to drive the development of innovation districts, says Peter Kisch. We need to get better at working with the content first and then the structure to create the right development in the innovation district in Lund. The second thing we need to look at is how they follow up on how the entire innovation city of Lund is developing. They do this by measuring, for example, the number of projects, the size of investments, and more. Finally, an important principle in Barcelona is that the city of innovation Barcelona is for everyone. It is about the opportunity for people to create their future in Barcelona either by starting a company, getting a job or being able to pursue further education.
Barcelona has also developed a publication to support the growth of the city. It includes everything from consulting, entrepreneurial training, IT training to how to seek support and funds or create collaborations between different actors in the city. It is aimed at Barcelonabor, companies, talents, visitors and investors.
- Barcelona has systematically gathered a great breadth of what the city, universities, companies, cultural actors and other development actors are doing and packaged this into an offer that is understandable, even for those who come from outside, says Katarina Scott. It is a city program about economic activity that shows what the city and others offer if, for example, you are looking for a job, want to start a business, work as an entrepreneur or want to start a store. What is interesting is that the city strives to appeal directly to the people and take into account the truly local. Both the catalog and REACT are an offer to everyone to be part of the adventure Barcelona!