Behavioral Urban Informatics, Logistics, and Transport Laboratory (BUILT)
Behavioral Urban Informatics, Logistics, and Transport Laboratory (BUILT)

New York, NY – Future Cities Catapult, the London-based center of excellence on urban innovation, has teamed up with one of the world’s leading data analytics units – the New York University Centre for Science & Urban Progress (NYU CUSP) – to create a novel framework to measure the economic and social impact of smart urban solutions, technology and infrastructure deployments.

This major piece of work will be carried out over the next 12 months by the Future Cities Catapult Digital Strategy and Economics team and NYU CUSP’s team of researchers led by Dr. Stanislav Sobolevsky and Dr. Constantine Kontokosta.

“CUSP has been instrumental in bringing a rigorous evidence based approach to this cutting edge project,” said Meagan Crawford, Lead Economist at Future Cities Catapult. “Future Cities Catapult will combine the world-leading expertise of Henry Overman from the What Works Centre and other notable academics over the next 12 months by testing and validating the economic performance of digital solutions across global cities”.

“At present, cities face enormous challenges when they try to assess the costs and benefits of smart city initiatives,” said Jarmo Eskselinen, Chief Innovation and Technology Office, Future Cities Catapult. “The complexities and interdependencies of city systems combined with a lack of evidence of impact mean that cities are not always able to justify major smart city investment. By working together, Future Cities Catapult’s economics experts and NYU CUSP’s data analytics experts can create the capacity to deliver a world-leading programme on urban impact measurement.”

“This collaborative project with Future Cities Catapult will allow us to significantly advance the field of urban data analytics and network science methodology,” said Dr. Sobolevsky. “This research will generate demonstrable real-world impact and use cases that can increase efficiencies in our cities as they respond to the challenges of rapid urbanization.”

“Cities are increasingly looking to technology to help them solve some of their most pressing challenges,” said Dr. Kontokosta, Assistant Professor of Urban Informatics at CUSP and the Tandon School of Engineering, “Our work with the Future Cities Catapult will provide city leaders with a robust, objective understanding of the economic, social, and environmental impacts of a range innovative approaches to improving urban infrastructure and quality-of-life in cities”.

NOTES TO EDITORS
For further information contact Naomi Moore on nmoore@futurecities.catapult.org.uk / 07718 584331

About New York University’s Center for Urban Science & Progress

CUSP is a university-wide center whose research and education programs are focused on urban informatics. Using NYC as its lab, and building from its home in the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, it integrates and applies NYU strengths in the natural, data, and social sciences to understand and improve cities throughout the world. CUSP offers a one-year MS degree in Applied Urban Science & Informatics. For more news and information on CUSP, please visit https://cusp.nyu.edu. Follow NYU CUSP on Twitter @NYU_CUSP.

About Future Cities Catapult

Future Cities Catapult exists to advance innovation, to grow UK companies, to make cities better. We bring together businesses, universities and city leaders so that they can work with each other to solve the problems that cities face, now and in the future. This means that we catalyse and apply innovations to grow UK business and promote UK exports.

From our Urban Innovation Centre in London, we provide world-class facilities and expertise to support the development of new products and services, as well as opportunities to collaborate with others, test ideas and develop business models.

We help innovators turn ingenious ideas into working prototypes that can be tested in real urban settings. Then, once they’re proven, we help spread them to cities across the world to improve quality of life, strengthen economies and protect the environment.

Follow us on Twitter @futurecitiescat or sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with our news.

About Catapult Centres

The Catapult Centres are a network of world-leading centres designed to transform the UK’s capability for innovation in specific areas and help drive future economic growth. The Catapults network has been established by Innovate UK. For more information visit catapult.org.uk.

CONTACTS: 

Kim Alfred, CUSP
917-392-0859
kim.alfred@nyu.edu

Patrice Kugler, The Marino Organization
212-402-3486
pkugler@marinopr.com