Ilpo Laitinen, Administration Director at Helsinki City Construction Services, Stara [1], and a PASCAL Associate Director for Europe led a small delegation from Helsinki to Glasgow on 7/8 March 2021. Other members of Stara present were its head Timo Martiskainen, Director of Logistics, Sami Aherva, and HR manager, Tommi Majanen. The objective of their visit was to gain greater insights on Glasgow as a learning city and as a smart city, and to hear of the University of Glasgow’s contribution.
Day 1 was devoted to discussions with the city of Glasgow and organised by Andrea Reid, Senior Education Officer in Education Services. Others involved in conversations during the day were:
- Cormack Quinn, Policy Manager who gave an Introduction to Glasgow City Council, with an overview of the context of the city and its overarching strategic plan [2].
- Duncan Booker, Group Manager (Green Economy, Innovation & International) who provided an overview of the city’s innovation strategy
- Donnie MacLeod, Head of Services, who presented the city’s work in Connected Learning across Education Services
- Gavin Slater, Head of Sustainability, who presented an overview of Glasgow’s Green Deal, Climate Plan and Just Transition Skills within the context of economic planning. The Glasgow Green Deal [3] is a nine-year mission which will fundamentally reshape the city's economy, and is linked to Glasgow’s Climate Plan [4].
- Colin Birchenall, Chief Digital Officer, who provided an overview of the city’s digital strategy [5] and dialogue
The day concluded with a session convened by Andrea Reid together with Michele McLung, Strategic Support Services Manager on key learning from the day.
Day 2 at the University of Glasgow was organised by Michael Burns, Business Development Manager, Research & Innovation Services, (who also liaised extensively with Andrea in planning) and Mike Osborne, PASCAL Director for Europe. The three inputs from the university were as follows:
- Ria Dunkley, Senior Lecturer in Education - Glasgow as a Living Lab Accelerating Novel Transformation [6] (GALLANT), focusing on her role in community engagement
- Mike King, Director of Economic Development, Glasgow Riverside Innovation District [7]
- Nick Bailey, Director, Urban Big Data Centre, Urban Big Data Centre [8]
There again was extensive dialogue. We hope that this represents just the start of a series of actions between the two cities and their universities, and demonstrates a very concrete example of the convening power of the PASCAL Observatory. A number of presentations from the two days are attached.
Many thanks to all from both cities and the university for their contributions.