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Graham

Ian

Graham

Validated Lead Expert

Generic Skills

B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development: 
An expert in change management, specialising in public sector innovation and city administration, I have extensive experience of urban challenges and developing integrated solutions. As Head of Innovation for City of York, my work has covered city governance, social innovation, economic development (including entrepreneurship, new economic models, sharing economy, circular economy) and citizen engagement and participation. Previous roles as Head of Business Change and Head of Performance have also enabled me to work with virtually all functions of modern local authorities giving me a deep understanding of all aspects of city governance and urban challenges. Confident working in a political environment, I am experienced working with or leading people at all levels, from senior teams to front line and community/volunteers. I prepared the bid and performed the role of project lead for the Genius Open network under URBACT II (York as Lead Partner - www.urbact.eu/genius-open). I led the “Innovate York” programme for 3 years - a city-wide programme to catalyse innovation in the city and region, working inside the municipality, across the city and connecting York internationally with global best practice. I also sit on the Innovation Working Group for the Leeds City Region Business Innovation & Growth panel - a public-private partnership group leading innovation in the region across sectors and themes, including developing the regional strategy for EU funding programmes such as ESIF
B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level: 
I have extensive experience of facilitating exchange and learning activities and have expanded that into a transnational context in recent years. Most recently, I led the Genius Open transfer network (www.urbact.eu/genius-open) as part of the URBACT II programme, being the project lead, subject matter expert and main point of contact for partner cities, URBACT experts and the Secretariat. I was heavily involved in designing the transnational activities for that project, either myself or in conjunction with the lead expert and project team and am well versed in the approaches required. I have also designed and led transnational learning outside URBACT, including conducting 4 days of meetings and workshops to transfer Open Innovation practice to the City of Cape Town (RSA). I am experienced in facilitation and coaching and employ these extensively in transitional learning and exchange, alongside a strong teamwork and collaboration ethos.
B.3. Proficiency in English: 
English is my mother tongue. Even then, I have an excellent command of the language in both written and spoken form. My professional roles have always required a high degree of written and oral communication ability, including presentations, report writing (both in a number of different styles and for different audiences) as well as workshop facilitation, coaching and mentoring, all of which require significant communication skills (written, oral, listening and body language). Through my varied roles, particularly previous work in more technical ICT roles, I have become highly proficient in communicating complex concepts to non-technical audiences but I am also therefore aware of the potential barriers posed by assumptions of language, and the need to ensure communication through other means where necessary.

Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:

Summary Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities: 
An expert in public sector innovation and change, I have spent my career in roles involving the transfer of knowledge and learning to others. I have designed and delivered a wide variety of local, national and transnational learning activities, including transfer into alternative languages and cultures. I have transferred innovation practice to others in the UK, as well as in other non-UK cities in Estonia, Italy, Spain and South Africa. This includes being the project lead for Genius Open under URBACT II (www.urbact.eu/genius-open). I am an experience coach and facilitator and have designed and delivered scores of workshops and other successful learning/exchange activities. I place much importance on balancing group dynamics and creating/maintaining effective working relationships and environments. I also also believe that people learn best through experiential activities, supported by effective learning materials, coaching and mentoring, where people are in control of their own learning journey, but with the right support.

Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy: 
Local Governance
Summary Thematic expertise: 
For URBACT II I was project lead & subject expert for Genius Open, representing the Lead Partner and the network, providing coaching and mentoring support to city partners adopting the open innovation and participatory practices being transferred. I have worked in city government for 10 years and have held senior Local Authority positions which have been cross-cutting, giving me an excellent understanding of the interrelationship between city departments and between city partners, and hence the need to design integrated solutions, the challenges in developing and deploying these successfully and the techniques needed to do so. I have designed and led a variety of successful (and often award-winning) social innovation / city innovation projects and also led major innovation and change programmes to transform how cities and their local authorities operate. I designed and led the Innovate York programme and also led the team which took York to the final of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge competition in 2014. I have extensive experience of change and innovation in a broad city context, having worked across sectors with Universities, SMEs & business accelerator/support programmes, voluntary and community groups as well as local authorities and other public sector organisations. I provide support for both public and private sector innovation on both a local and regional level, actively working across sectors and disciplines.
Theme / Policy: 
Research, Innovation and Knowledge Economy
Summary Thematic expertise: 
For URBACT II I was project lead & subject expert for Genius Open, representing the Lead Partner and the network, providing coaching and mentoring support to city partners adopting the open innovation and participatory practices being transferred. I have worked in city government for 10 years and have held senior Local Authority positions which have been cross-cutting, giving me an excellent understanding of the interrelationship between city departments and between city partners, and hence the need to design integrated solutions, the challenges in developing and deploying these successfully and the techniques needed to do so. I have designed and led a variety of successful (and often award-winning) social innovation / city innovation projects and also led major innovation and change programmes to transform how cities and their local authorities operate. I designed and led the Innovate York programme and also led the team which took York to the final of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge competition in 2014. I have extensive experience of change and innovation in a broad city context, having worked across sectors with Universities, SMEs & business accelerator/support programmes, voluntary and community groups as well as local authorities and other public sector organisations. I provide support for both public and private sector innovation on both a local and regional level, actively working across sectors and disciplines.
Theme / Policy: 
Entrepreneurship and competitive SMEs

Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies

E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices : 
I was one of two (co)designers of the GeniUS! model, used in York for a number of years and which was the practice transferred within Genius Open. This is an overarching participatory model, based on open innovation principles and combined with other co-production and citizen engagement approaches. The model uses traditional engagement channels (meetings, workshops etc) alongside an online platform to enable a wide reach for an open discussion of ideas and proposals. The model also involves a bespoke “Open Innovation Event” as a cornerstone of the GeniUS! model (http://bit.ly/1FsYx6E and http://bit.ly/1cxgycP). This event combines the creativity and solution-focus of a ‘hackathon’ with the structure and discipline of a facilitated workshop. The result is a powerful, best-practice co-production model, comprising both a process and a set of principles (or ethos/philosophy) which enables a city to engage with a diverse mix of people to generate ideas and co-deliver solutions to those problems. The model has now been successfully transferred to 3 other EU cities, with three further authorities currently considering its adoption. Tools include problem definition and root cause analysis, stakeholder mapping, power-interest matrix, ideation activities and clustering techniques, role play and user-centric design activities. Creation of the correct physical environment is also key, alongside introduction of alternative thinking examples from experts or disruptors.
E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies: 
I have designed and deployed monitoring tools for a wide range of projects and change programmes across my career. I have designed, monitored & evaluated major city council transformation and efficiency programmes and most recently designed the monitoring framework for the Innovate York programme and co-designed the outcomes framework for Genius Open with the Thematic Expert. Tools include a combination of (hard) data metrics, normally relating to quantifying outputs, and (soft) outcome-based assessments, normally qualitative in nature. The combination of the two provides quantifiable evidence but also a richer picture through a narrative on perceptions & interrelations not so easily quantified but relevant. Establishing a baseline at the start of a project, based on the expected impact of the work is standard process to ensure effects/change can be demonstrated. Blogs & video capture enrich this storytelling, as does artistic representation of outcomes and learning. In Genius Open, the Reflective Review process allowed the project partners to identify and quantify hard metrics and identify and describe soft metrics. normally break monitoring into 3 parts: Outputs, relating to things directly produced, but with no lasting effect; Outcomes, the immediate effects of making good use of the outputs; and Impact, being the longer term change(s) brought about by the Outcomes.
E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level: 
Methods to keep up to date with policy, trends and funds include: regularly reading key publications and websites of significant bodies (including subscriptions to newsletters and blogs) for relevant UK, European and international leaders in the field e.g. Nesta, Bloomberg Philanthropies, URBACT, Eurocities; tracking relevant projects and their development, e.g. Design for Europe, EU Mayors Challenge; using networks / professional acquaintances and exchange within collaborative projects and relationships for mutual exchange of ideas and potential opportunities for funding / delivery; periodic scan of funding calls online; links with regional bodies, such as the Local Enterprise Partnership for the Leeds City Region; attending relevant conferences and events; national press and relevant publications e.g. The Economist, Municipal Journal (MJ); subscription to services such as Grantfinder (UK); arrangements with key networks to share areas of interest; active tracking on social media.
E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities: 
In both the workshops in Cape Town and in Genius Open, the approach was to understand and baseline the local context prior to starting, in order to ascertain how the practice being transferred would be deployed in sympathy with local customs, culture and pre-existing practice or expertise. Following this, the tools and model to be transferred and adopted was tailored to fit with the situation on the ground in each partner city, working with and building on existing strengths, allowing for local challenges but introducing new methods where none were present at all. In the case of Genius Open, the 3 city partners had 3 distinct cultures and different local contexts, so adapting our transfer approach was an early task. This was done through the baselining phase, choosing tools and styles to fit each context. As the practice was adopted, we used a coaching and mentoring approach to enable the local teams to understand what was important about the practice and to adjust the flexible aspects to fit with their local situation. Siracusa, for example, had some strong participatory planning skills within the team, and we built on them whilst applying the GeniUS! model locally. San Sebastián had fewer such skills, so introduction of these skills to them was more important. However, they had a larger selection of existing networks, which could be built upon within the project, whereas Siracusa’s networks were built up from a much smaller base.
Summary Expertise: 
I am highly experienced in providing cross-cutting support to local authorities and related stakeholders, having held a number of senior city council positions including leading on city innovation, policy & strategy, business change & transformation, performance and service improvement. I am well versed in designing and delivering integrated solutions and supporting others in doing so in a collaborative and inclusive way. I have designed and run bespoke participatory and co-creation processes, linking these with complex culture change programmes required for them to be effective and become embedded in a local authority. I have transferred existing practice into new contexts and am able to take account of cultural differences and local contexts in doing so, building on local strengths and empowering individuals and groups to create sustainable change. I am passionate about sharing learning between cities and between people and believe this is an essential part of urban and social development for local authorities to be sustainable in the future.

Informations

Residence location:
United Kingdom
Languages:
English - Mother tongue
Foreign Languages level: 
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Email:
iansgraham@gmail.com

Area of expertise