The leadership challenge in cities' innovation
In this second Zoom In of the NextGen Microcities project, the UIA expert Fabio Sgaragli interviews Laura Codere, Project Manager of the project. This Zoom In focuses on the “leadership for implementation” challenge, a central quality needed to drive the realization of ambitious innovative initiatives in cities. Leadership is key to drive change and innovation. This is true for any organisation, as well as for any community. Albeit difficult to define, leadership is an essential quality people must possess in order to guide teams through difficulties to reach the planned objectives.

The success of NextGen lies for a big part in the leadership qualities of the project management of the project. It has in fact contributed significantly to driving the team and guiding it through complexity, managing both political expectations and project implementation. 

In this interview, Laura Codere takes us on a journey through the 3-year implementation of this UIA initiative and, through lessons learned on all seven dimensions of the UIA framework for implementation challenges, helps us understand what it takes to overcome obstacles and solve problems in an environment full of interdependent variables.

 

About this resource

Author
Fabio Sgaragli
Project
Location
Ventspils & Valmiera, Latvia Small sized cities (50k > 250k)
About UIA
Urban Innovative Actions
Programme/Initiative
2014-2020

The Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) is a European Union initiative that provided funding to urban areas across Europe to test new and unproven solutions to urban challenges. The initiative had a total ERDF budget of €372 million for 2014-2020.

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