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Join us for the inaugural GIID Global Summit, 9-11 April 2025 in Monterrey, Mexico
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- About Us
Advance / Our Integrated Approach
An integrated approach to advance districts: practice-oriented research, peer-learning through the Global Network, and tailored strategic support. Three areas, linked together to apply and reinforce new insights.
Our world is changing at a pace never seen before. With this change come new or increasingly complex imperatives such as the need to decarbonize, to de-risk our economy due to geopolitical tensions, and to diversify our workforce to address growing social inequality.
Innovation districts—with their concentration of R&D activities, actors and alliances—are powerfully designed to take on these imperatives or ‘wicked problems’ with alacrity and focus. But this requires districts to undertake a highly orchestrated effort.
What districts need to evolve | Our integrated approach |
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Make decisions that are more empirically-grounded. Where data and evidence are used to identify crucial gaps in their innovation ecosystem, how to improve their physical landscape to be more open and inclusive, and where they possess unique advantages to leverage. | Practice-oriented research GIID’s focus on deep empirical analysis of each district is a fundamental step to understanding an innovation district’s specific challenges and leveraging its unique strengths. At the same time, analysis across the large number of districts in the Global Network has allowed GIID to better distinguish districts among others. Learn more |
Learn from district peers and structured learning sessions. Where districts come together through GIID-facilitated sessions to share innovative practice, lessons learned, and even insightful mistakes. | Global Network Informed by its empirical research, GIID engages with groups of innovation districts through the Global Network of Innovation Districts—a peer-to-peer network and a highly structured learning program. Districts meet in groups of different sizes, ranging from just two peer districts up to 15 districts in different cities around the world. With the active engagement by GIID advisors and strategists, innovation districts develop and implement new products or processes to accelerate their growth. Today, GIID’s Global Network counts nearly 50 districts. Learn more |
Experience and global insights on how to design and execute a comprehensive district strategy. Where the GIID team works in partnership with your districts or organization. | Strategic support Every year, GIID takes on highly specialized work with a small number of districts or select organizations to advance an innovation district. This often begins by undertaking deep empirical research to identify their unique strengths and problematic gaps. The work can also include asset mapping and analytical mapping of strengths to help districts achieve a true ‘place-innovation nexus.’ This work often includes deep engagement with leaders and/or local committees to build a collective strategy together to ensure ‘buy-in’ and investment support. Learn more |
The impact of our work
Our aim is to drive impact in the very places on earth that will have a hand in solving our global problems. We’ve outlined some examples of how we have helped districts advance their practice and impact.
A cross-cutting analytical tool of districts evaluating districts through over 75 indicators, including empirical research, one-on-one sessions, and tailored surveys
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