The Future Cities Catapult is a government-sponsored innovation centre, part of the UK’s network of Catapults. We bring together businesses, universities and city leaders so that they can work with each other to solve the problems that cities face. Our mission is to advance urban innovation, to grow UK companies and to make cities better.

Do you have a focus on a specific type of standard or sector?

The Future Cities Catapult supports the creation and adoption of standards relevant to cities, from policy level standards through to technical standards. The specific standards we support range from local government services, such as planning, through to systems like Building Information Modelling.

What standards have you helped to develop or support?

We have convened stakeholders from across the sector to support the development of the BSI’s smart city “PAS 18x” series of guidance standards. There are now six guides available on a variety of topics, including smart city strategies and project planning, through to data sharing and cyber security in cities.

We are working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and local authorities in the UK to develop and support the adoption of new data standards for planning. Elsewhere, we have input into guidance on standards for web accessibility for the SmartCities4All initiative and are part of standards working groups in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, the TM Forum and the Open and Agile Smart Cities consortium.

What type of support can you offer to organisations interested in developing open standards for data?

We convene communities of practice and undertake user research into the need for standards in order to collaboratively produce the requirements for any future standards. Once a standard has been published we support adoption through outreach events and other dissemination activities.