Guangzhou Award to help build better future

Ability to transfer innovations to other cities a key criteria

The Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation, known as the Guangzhou Award, which aims to encourage urban management innovations, is set to make a practical and significant contribution in the "century of the city".

With a "global perspective" it is developing into an ongoing system of learning for cities around the world and inspiring new methods to deal with social, economic and environmental challenges.

"The Guangzhou Award is not only a way to showcase excellence in cities around the world, it is also intended to foster exchanges and learning," said Josep Roig, secretary-general of United Cities and Local Governments and Metropolis.

UCLG is a co-sponsor of the biennial award, initiated by the Mayor of Guangzhou in 2012.

Members of the Technical Committee, formed by 11 urban practitioners and scholars from across the world decided the shortlist of 15 finalists and will vote for the final five laureates.

Technical Committee members Neal Peirce and Farley Peters, and Nicholas You, a strategic adviser to the award, explained that they applied multiple filters - "for example, not only the novelty and impact of an innovation, but also questions of social inclusion and whether it benefits all classes of society."

The Guangzhou Award joins an increasingly crowded field of awards, challenges and other means of recognizing good ideas for improving city governance.

Other newcomers include the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge, held in the United States in 2012 and Europe in 2014, and the Siemens-C40 Cities Climate Leadership Award in 2013 and 2014.

The World Mayor Award competition, begun in London in 2004, continues to flourish.

And all the new competitions join such established initiatives as the US National Civic League's All-America City Awards, started in 1949, and Harvard University's Innovations in American Government Awards, begun in 1985.

One thing that distinguishes the Guangzhou award is its global perspective. A question that always loomed large for the Technical Committee was would other cities be able to adapt the innovation to their own circumstances.

As they were at pains to point out the Guangzhou Award is not just worldwide in focus, "it also follows the global march of urbanization toward the Far East."

And it is just a beginning.

The Guangzhou Institute for Urban Innovation will pool all the submitted initiatives together for analyzing. This think tank, which was founded in 2012 simultaneously with the award, will then apply the findings to Guangzhou and share them with cities around the world.

The city is promising to send missions to the 15 finalist cities in the competition, as well as urging other cities and urban scholars worldwide to take note of lessons to be learned from the winning cities. Major articles, books, and other follow through projects are also planned.

zhanghaizhou@chinadaily.com.cn