The municipality has an important role as democratic arena, service provider, community developer and public authority. The municipal sector handles complex tasks with high demands on quality, efficiency and innovation, to the benefit of a society in constant change. To solve the tasks in both the short and long term, there is a need to focus on innovation and research in the sector. Trondheim Municipality incorporates innovative services from the cradle to the grave and augments democracy by partnering with the private sector, academia and civil society, making it an effective quadruple-helix model city. To make such collaborative models work, changes are needed not only in service areas, but also in the organisations providing and supporting the municipal services.
Trondheim Municipality and our local university, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU (which is also Norway’s largest university) have for many years had extensive cooperation within disciplines of importance to the municipal sector. Trondheim is now one of the most research-intensive cities in Europe per capita, which among other responsibilities gives us a unique ability and obligation to address the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
New demands for innovation and restructuring in the sector mean, however, that the university-municipality collaboration must be developed to a new level. In the University City TRD3.0 – Learning Society programme (TRD3.0) collaboration is formalised into a four-year comprehensive pilot, spanning all the municipal service areas: health and welfare, upbringing and education, city development, smart city and innovation.
Within TRD3.0, Trondheim municipality’s and NTNU’s aim is to give Trondheim and Norway long-term access to knowledge, expertise and technology of strategic importance to develop good and sustainable societies. The ambition is that TRD3.0 leads to continuously improved local services and products that also aid in commercialising research and innovation, seeking to mitigate UN Sustainable Development Goals. Technology development and digitisation are integral parts of all academic development work. Equally important is the focus on relational welfare and citizen involvement. Through open standards and data, business areas are bound together and create the prerequisite for sharing and learning across all fields.
The university will engage in research, education and innovation that respond to the needs of the city. The municipality is a significant employer, and a living laboratory for research, development and innovation. Greater requirements for highlighting the importance and relevance of the research mean that the municipalities have to take a clearer role as a premier in formulating academic issues and prioritising research areas and resources.
In line with this, TRD3.0 will: 1) ensure access to relevant and updated knowledge and competence that municipalities need, 2) establish an arena for research-based education, continuing education and training, relevant placement for students, doctoral programmes and research and innovation within areas of strategic importance for the sector, and 3) establish a new model for continuous mutual competence and knowledge transfer between academia and the municipality. As an example of an activity within TRD3.0, Trondheim Municipality and NTNU are leading the +CityXchange (+CxC) project, a Smart Cities Lighthouse project with Trondheim and Limerick (Ireland) as leading cities. The ambition is to achieve sustainable urban ecosystems that have zero emissions and establish a 100% renewable energy city-region by 2050. The vision is to enable the co-creation of the future we want to live in. This will include the development of a framework and supporting tools to enable a common energy market supported by a connected community. This will lead to recommendations for new policy intervention, market regulation/deregulation and business models that will deliver positive energy communities integrating e-mobility as a service (eMaaS). Trondheim aims for Positive Energy Districts in the near future. The vision for University City TRD3.0 is ‘Knowledge for a better world – innovation, restructuring and digitisation in the public sector’.