The Urban Ideas Bakery is a 2-3 day creative process for the developing of innovative solutions for social and urban challenges. It utilises a menu of tools and methods with social innovators, sector experts and policy makers. Each event is designed with local partners, drawing on a wide range of international expertise and networks to address urban challenges.
The method for the Urban Ideas Bakery has been devised with reference to the Young Foundation report
‘Breakthrough cities: how cities can mobilise creativity and knowledge to tackle compelling social challenges’, commissioned with the specific purpose of investigating what a process such as the Urban Ideas Bakery might be like.
The resulting Urban Ideas Bakery process is the result of collaboration between the British Council, process designers, service designers and other experts working in this field around Europe.
The Urban Ideas Bakery works on the premise that every city and community is different, and that solutions should be created to address these unique combinations of challenges. Before a bakery event takes place, we will work closely with each community to understand their needs, and then through an iterative process, design an event that will include local policy makers, international sector experts, local experts, facilitators and very importantly a group of young social innovators
Together, they will deliver custom-made, fresh, practical solutions to issues such as community building, developing creative clusters, cultural policy and programmes, recreational spaces, environmental issues, integration, sustainable transport, health, and crime prevention.
The first Urban Ideas Bakery is planned for autumn 2009 in Norway, with events in Lithuania and Hungary following shortly after.
