Description

Follow this discussion between Monica Diniz, Head of Prevention, Security and International Relations, City of Lisbon, and Andrew Wootton, Professor of Human-Centred Design Innovation at the University of Salford, on how innovation can inspire local crime prevention practices.

This episode focuses on the main objectives of the IcARUS project, which is to help local and regional authorities adopt innovative approaches to tackle urban security problems. Funded by the European Union, the IcARUS project has developed and demonstrated tailored crime prevention programmes in six European cities: Lisbon, Nice, Riga, Rotterdam, Turin, and Stuttgart. .

➡️Moderated by Elizabeth Johnston, Efus’ Executive Director.

This episode was produced as part of the IcARUS project funded by the European Commission. This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 882749.

Hosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Welcome to the Efus podcast, a podcast produced by the European Forum for Urban Security in collaboration with the IcARUS Project. I'm Elizabeth Johnston, the Executive Director of Efus, the European network of 250 local and regional authorities dedicated to urban security policies. I'm happy to welcome Monica Diniz, Head of Prevention and Security at the City of Lisbon in Portugal. and Andrew Wootton, Professor of Human-Centered Design Innovation at the University of Salford in the UK. In this episode, we'll be discussing the IcARUS project, which aims to promote innovative approaches in cities to address urban security challenges. Andrew, first question, what does the Icarus project mean by innovation?

• Andrew Wootton

  For Icarus, innovation means what it does in any other context in that it means something new to the world, so a new idea or a process or a method of doing something. But importantly, it's not just new or novel, but it's actually carried into practice. So that's the difference, as Joseph Schumpeter, the grandfather of innovation theory, said. Invention is creating something new or novel. Innovation is carrying it into practice, and so IcARUS is about not just coming up with new ideas, but actually implementing them and bringing them into practice.

• Monica Diniz

  Yes, completely. Because indeed, it's how we can engage every key stakeholders in order to have these different know-hows in how to address a common problem. How we can in fact design and think about effective solutions to promote safer communities and the well-being of citizens.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Is there a difference between social and technological aspects of innovation?

• Andrew Wootton

  From an innovation point of view, we'd probably say not. I know people talk about social innovation and that's an end point. So a social innovation is an innovation that has a societal benefit or a social benefit. So it's not driven by profit, let's say, it's not commercial. But as a process, It uses a common process, it uses the design process and we talk about the human-centred designer process as being the successful approach to actually coming up with an innovation that suits end users and stakeholders and is more likely to be used. So it's social in the sense that in the context of IcARUS we're involving a lot of social actors if you like. So communities. Representatives, people who work in the community are engaged in the process of innovation. So there's quite an emphasis on engagement within the project.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  So this is all about engagement. What are the main challenges when adopting an innovative approach in the field of urban security? Maybe Monica first.

• Monica Diniz

  I would say also that it's engagement precisely. Sometimes it's not so much how to create these partnerships, but also sustain them and maintain them over time. Because indeed it's a very dynamic society, we have very complex problems that we have to deal with, and it's not easy on a daily basis in order to address it and to join together both civil society, municipal services, organisation. Also the importance to include the private sector also in this. Because indeed it's becoming too complex to address it only from the public sector. And also, again, the awareness from policymakers to adopt these good policies to promote this engagement. It's like a work in progress, but we need to invest on that. Because time is very important for every stakeholder and it has to be indeed effective and answers in order to... to keep also the motivation to continue to work.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  From an academic perspective, is the same challenge Andrew?

• Andrew Wootton

  Engagement is key because if you don't have the right perspectives on a problem, the likelihood is you're not going to understand the problem in full. You're going to get a distorted perspective. So again, it's about the bottom-up approach. So starting from fundamentally understanding the problem at the base level. And in a project that can be an issue depending on who's involved in the project. So in IcARUS we did do research where in some of the cities a researcher went out to talk to people in their work context. So out on the street to talk to different people to get their perspectives. So it's not necessary that everybody is brought together in a room in a workshop. There may be different techniques required because some people are more difficult to get to. But by having that insight. The chances are you will come up with a new perspective that will give you perhaps a way into an innovative solution. and perhaps give you something that will help with implementation at the end when you understand the role of that person or what they feel about their role. So a lot of the very technological solutions fall down at implementation because they don't take account of the role of the humans within the system who may feel threatened by this new approach or may undermine what they think about their role. So again, this is why we say, Technology may be an outcome, but it shouldn't drive the focus of the project. That needs to be driven by all the engagement of the partners.

• Monica Diniz

  I would just say to what Andrew is saying, that the importance in the partnerships, about this human relation between actors, this is really key in order to address problems. Because otherwise it will be very complicated. It is very important. to each partner to know each other, to understand what are the competencies and what are the goals and the challenges that each one has. And this interaction promotes also some support in order to address, otherwise it will be very difficult to address this in the field. And again, we are talking about changing on human, on the cases of problems that people are facing and this human-centred approach indeed it's sustained on this relationship in order to give up the better answers, just to stress.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  So can we say that innovation is going back to the human factor?

• Monica Diniz

  I would say that the success of many of our work, especially on community policing, it's based on that, on this trust relationship between police and partners. between partners and other partners with different levels, it makes the extra mile in order to sometimes Things are very overcoming in terms of what are the resources of the different stakeholders, but you can do the extra commitment to address it together. This is really valuable.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Andrew, do you want to add something to that answer?

• Andrew Wootton

  I think the important thing with regard to security is that it is something that is created by humans operating together. So it's an outcome. It's a... It's a perception from the citizen point of view, but then you have police officers who are responsible for doing things that help security or solve security problems. So it is incredibly, and obviously you're relying on their motivation because often, like all emergency services, they're going beyond the scope of their job in many cases. The motivation has to be with them to do that job. It's very much driven by the human actors within the system and therefore you need to take that into account. when thinking of a solution. Otherwise, you can accidentally cause a problem that you're not aware of because you don't really understand the system at that level.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Do you have any example of an innovative practice that addresses a security challenge?

• Andrew Wootton

  With regard to an idea that we had or an innovation that we ran in Manchester that came about from some collaboration, we were contacted by a youth charity who was asking us about whether we had ever involved. young people in coming up with design solutions, working with the police. So we worked with them, this charity called Catch 22 in the UK, to develop a programme called Youth Design Against Crime. And that engaged young people who were identified as being at risk of offending. So these are young people who might have been... stopped by the police for doing some low-level antisocial behaviour. So they were sort of known to the police, if you like. So they were also at youth centres, or they may even have been excluded from school, so they were being kicked out of school. So these young people were brought together and we ran a programme of activity with them that helped them, took them through a process where they designed positive interventions for their neighbourhoods. but in collaboration with a police officer in their group helping them. So Leber, a youth worker, but also with a police officer.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  What are the results?

• Andrew Wootton

  And the results was, well, that it changed their perception of themselves. So one of the things that's been linked to youth crime is a lack of confidence by the young person. So they fall into sort of gang activity. They don't feel they have any capability. So that was challenged by doing this project because the projec is a program of 12 weeks but it ends with like a public event so it's sort of like the X factor you know you have a judging panel and then you present your idea and the winner is picked on a public stage so it's quite something they've never done before so it's very daunting to them but then having gone through that they are so lifted by it that it changes what they think they can do so since then we've followed some of the kids they've gone on and done other things have gone in They've got other jobs, they've gone to college or something. So it is potentially changing their self-perception and it also affects how the police officers feel about the young people in many cases, which has been an issue over time. So that idea was something that we supported Monica. We translated it for the Lisbon context.

• Monica Diniz

  Yes, because under the IcARUS project, when we started to work on the prevention of risk behavior in young people and preventing juvinal delinquency, for us it was important to to address our challenge of how to improve the relationship between the police and young people, especially because after the COVID pandemic, we noticed in the neighborhoods of the city that there was more defiant behavior between the police and young people. And we tried to, in some cases, young people that had been well with the police officers before, but then they grew up in two years and it was a huge difference. All the work was lost of this relationship of trust building. So we needed to, and for us it was important in the IcARUS to work on the tool, the strategy to do it. somehow to work on this relationship. And when we had our local workshop with our partners from the Community Policing Programme, this idea was also felt as needed and supported by the partners, and it was very much in line with what Andrew has done and shared about the Youth Design Against Crime Programme. So, And for us it is important to take into account what works and how can we transfer something that was and try to learn if we can and inspire by it, we can also try to implement it. So we adapted the materials that were based on the Design Against Crime program. We prepare in order to have this also 12-week program, which is now in the demonstrating phase, and to also see how this relationship, because we have the police as mentors of these young people. So it's been very interesting so far to see the evolution between the relationship, and we are looking forward to see the result in April, when it's going to be the final step. In order also to learn from this experience, how can we also transfer to other neighborhoods of the city, how can it be under the IcARUS project also be transferable to other cities, and how can we together also learn what happens in the UK and in Portugal, and how can we learn from it to support also other cities with this challenge.

• Andrew Wootton

  I think the important thing about the way that Monica has implemented this has been about the initial stage, you had a workshop which was very well attended by youth workers. And it was that workshop which enabled us to identify the solution because there was very much an agreement about what the problem was, what the challenges were having with young people, and what the sort of thing that would be useful. And so by understanding the sort of requirements at that stage. We were then able to identify, oh, we have something that we've used that might work. And then we did some work with again with the workshop validating that idea. So running the idea past them all to check that this was something that they think would work so that the whole process of innovation is not just coming up with the idea, but it's working with the stakeholders to ensure it's going to be implemented and that they're acceptable to them and adapting it where necessary to fit with the Lisbon context.

• Monica Diniz

  That's why for us, and just to complement that the importance of having these partnerships and these policies, in the case of Lisbon, to support the Community Policing Programme, these allow us to work for more than a decade with local partners, which in these promotes like a common language and a common understanding for being able to work together. Sometimes we have diverse opinions about things, but it's common. way of addressing things and trying to have this compromise to change is really what makes it work. Again, we have the bottom-up perspective but top-down also to support these programs.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  How do you think the IcARUS project supports the development of a culture of innovation within the six cities?

• Andrew Wootton

  Well, I think it's important that it introduces them to this process. So I think there is often a miscommunication in terms of what innovation means. People think it's sort of inventors in sheds coming up with technology. It's actually often used as a synonym for technology. You say innovation to a lot of people, they immediately think technology. There's a lot of examples from the commercial world of big innovations, actually not being so much to do with the technology, but to do with the whole ecosystem around them. I mean, Apple famously, their iPod came to dominate, not because of the technology. Other companies were competing on more and more storage. Apple looked at the way humans use music, the way humans share music, understood the social system around it. So by going through with the partners this process of humans-centered design that we've introduced to them and taking them through a process of research, engaging stakeholders, understanding problems, and then coming up with concepts and then also prototyping those concepts. So we've encouraged them to go back to their stakeholders and test ideas out and refine. then they can see that you get to an endpoint where you're much more likely to have something that's acceptable to end users and becomes implemented. So I'm hoping that this is something transferable that will enable them to perhaps tackle other problems in a way that is following this sort of design approach.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  What about Lisbon, Monica? Does the Icarus project help you?

• Monica Diniz

  Yes, pretty much. Icarus project, just as also other European funding projects, it allows us also to have this time to research, and sometimes at the local level and the practitioner level, it's very much everything happens at the same time. So we need to have this structure also about how to reflect, how to research also, and to have the learnings about what we are doing. in the field and this gives this opportunity. Just as Andrew said, it's the method. This helps to structure all the steps that we need to do. And also it's very important the bench learning between different partners, also from other countries. It's interesting because it's different cultures, which sometimes it's really important and make us see in a different way. Again, very much in line with this human-centred approach and the design perspective about how to think out of the box and how to see different things. And when we are having the support by a course project. Having all these different methodologies to do, it helps us also to We learn about what are we doing, how to design new solutions, how to engage our, although we have this participatory approach, but with this more consistent way. And then we can evaluate, we can compare, and this is really important to support the job and again then to show the results to the different stakeholders and again to our policy makers.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  I have one last question. How does the social innovation approach change the work culture of cities in the area of security?

• Monica Diniz

  Well, I would say that it's this way of thinking, perhaps. This cultural of thinking in the integrative way, different perspectives, and how to put into practice those effective solutions. And for that, we have to have the conditions to support. So which means that we have to organize in our case as a municipal police, we have also to have the organisation with our partners, with the inside organization also. how to address it and how to organise in order to implement these projects. which changes also our culture. For instance, the way that sometimes we take for granted that senior police officers sometimes might be engaged in something, it is important also to engage them from the beginning, just as we engage community. So this sometimes allows us also to have these notions, awareness about some things that If we've done it that way, or if we haven't taken the time to think about it, it will still be occult. There are also so many priorities, but it helps to change the culture because we see better results.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Do you share this conclusion, Andrew?

• Andrew Wootton

  Yes, I think it's very much about raising the innovation or the design innovation capability the city. A lot of, in the commercial world, a lot of companies have not embraced design and there's moves by governments to try and encourage them because it increases competitiveness, because it's successful. And actually one of the benefits from IcARUS will be to demonstrate the success. We have six very different tools that have been developed. They're all equally positive in terms of addressing the problems that they were focused at, doing very different. actual strategies to address those problems, but all in areas that I'm sure are common to all cities. So I think at the beginning of the project, focusing it down on one problem is always an issue. But once you've done it, you can then really start to be creative around how you're going to address that. Then developing something that can be implemented. And as Monica said, that more senior managers or politicians can see the benefit. I'm hoping that will open their eyes to this idea of the approach. being something that they should perhaps adopt more often.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Thank you Andrew.

• Andrew Wootton

  Thank you very much.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Thank you. And thank you, Monica.

• Monica Diniz

  Thank you.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Many thanks to our guests and thank you to our audience for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, which was produced in the framework of the IcARUS Project, funded by the European Commission. We look forward to sharing more insights and discussions with you in the future. So don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and visit our website of the European Forum for Urban Security. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Efus podcast.