This chapter focuses on the conditions that enable cities to adopt ideas from elsewhere. While most cities are open to learning from peers, in practice, this is often hard to act on. Limited time and resources, competing priorities, and rigid processes can all get in the way of turning external ideas into real programmes. Starting from these constraints is key. The chapter highlights four conditions that make idea adoption more likely to succeed: staff capacity and organisational culture; political and strategic alignment; access to city networks; and internal structures that support ongoing learning. It then sets out practical actions to strengthen these conditions, including: empowering staff to identify and develop ideas; linking idea adoption with existing priorities; using networks more strategically, and establishing clear processes and responsibilities to sustain this work over time.
A Toolkit for Adopting Ideas from Other Cities
Abstract
The ambition to learn from peers often collides with the fiscal and administrative realities of local government, with capacity limitations and resource constraints emerging as the most consistently cited barriers to adopting ideas from other cities (OECD/Bloomberg Philanthropies survey). While cities report strong openness to external learning, many operate under tight capacity and financial pressures that constrain their ability to assess, adapt and implement external models. These constraints are not exceptional or related to idea adoption only but reflect the everyday conditions of local governance. Recognising them is therefore a starting point for identifying realistic and effective pathways to adoption (Diep and McPhearson, 2025[1]; Burris and Lin, 2021[2]).
Within this constrained environment, four enabling conditions are particularly important. First, staff capacity and autonomy are critical to initiating and sustaining engagement with external ideas. While elected officials set priorities and drive political action, city staff can also be empowered to initiate and advance projects. Regardless of the institutional structure, internal champions or “policy entrepreneurs” (Kingdon, 1984[3]) often play a decisive role in turning external ideas into local solutions (Li, Taeihagh and Tan, 2022[4]). These internal champions help build coalitions, navigate institutional constraints, and connect otherwise fragmented actors across policy networks (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996[5]).
Ensuring staff members are able to find, assess, and adapt ideas from elsewhere requires proactively cultivating an organisational culture that makes it easy, rewarding, and motivating for them to explore the adoption of proven ideas. Yet sustaining such a culture over time requires staff stability, institutional memory, and a willingness to treat failure as part of the innovation process. Notably, 57% of responding cities report lacking a culture of systematically reporting on or discussing past failures. This limits cumulative learning and may reduce the effectiveness of future adaptation efforts, particularly where resources are already stretched.
Second, strategic alignment shapes how cities focus and structure their learning efforts. Three quarters of cities (75%) rank strong political leadership as the most helpful factor in adopting ideas from elsewhere (Figure 2.1). Leadership plays a pivotal enabling role, not only as symbolic endorsement, but as a mechanism for prioritisation and resource mobilisation. Indeed, having a dedicated budget ranks as the second most helpful factor: 39% of responding cities rank it as the first or second most important condition. These two factors are closely linked. In most respondent cities, either the head of the relevant department (49%) or the Mayor’s office (41%) controls the allocation of resources for idea adoption processes, indicating that leadership (be it political or technical) and funding capacity are institutionally connected. By anchoring idea exploration efforts within existing political priorities and policy agendas, cities can reduce the risk of trend-driven exploration and ensure that learning contributes directly to advancing policy goals and addressing local needs.
Third, access to external networks and knowledge ecosystems conditions how cities identify and refine ideas (Robb et al., 2023[6]). Learning from elsewhere rarely occurs in isolation; it is mediated by inter-urban networks, partnerships, and intermediary organisations that facilitate knowledge exchange, provide technical assistance, and reduce information costs. Engaging with such networks enables cities not only to identify relevant ideas, but also to access implementation support and peer learning opportunities, which are particularly valuable under capacity constraints.
Finally, institutional structures and organisational arrangements shape whether learning from others becomes an embedded capability or remains dependent on individual initiative. Beyond having sufficient resources, cities need to put in place clear roles, responsibilities, and processes to learn from elsewhere in a consistent way. Today, the degree of institutionalisation varies. Although flexible mechanisms, such as agile procurement, adaptive budgeting, pilot-friendly regulations or urban living labs make it easier to learn and experiment without excessive administrative burdens and under resource constraints (Willems and Giezen, 2022[7]; Voorwinden, van Bueren and Verhoef, 2023[8]), the scope to introduce or use these mechanisms varies across cities, depending on the competencies they have been granted by regional or national authorities (Schulze, 2024[9]).
Additionally, only half of responding cities (52%) report having a dedicated innovation team. This suggests that idea adoption frequently occurs within existing departmental structures rather than through specialised units. While the absence of a dedicated team does not preclude adoption, their absence may mean that responsibilities for learning from others are diffuse, that efforts rely more heavily on informal co-ordination or individual initiative, and that resources are mobilised on a case-by-case basis rather than secured for idea adoption as an embedded method.
Insights emerging from interviews with local governments suggest that adopting an idea from elsewhere is a particularly interesting course of action for local governments facing complex and cross-cutting challenges (e.g. homelessness; natural disasters; data governance) that imply innovative, cross-sectoral approaches. In these contexts, adopting an idea from elsewhere may require substantial horizontal collaboration across city departments (Mosqueira and Alessandro, 2023[10]; Evans et al., 2025[11]), especially in the absence of dedicated teams. In such contexts, putting in place clear organisational arrangements can help ensure that learning from elsewhere is co-ordinated, sustained and ultimately translated into action.
Note: 44 cities ranked the first factor, 24 the second, 24 the third.
Source: OECD/Bloomberg Philanthropies Survey.
These insights point to a clear implication: to capture the full potential of idea adoption, cities may benefit from being more deliberate. The conditions described above can be translated into a set of practical levers that cities can activate within their existing structures. The following actions illustrate how cities can operationalise these levers in practice, depending on their context, resources, and level of ambition.
This list encompasses four practical actions: Empower staff to find and experiment with ideas from elsewhere; Anchor idea adoption in existing priorities; Engage with networks to identify ideas and benefit from support; Introduce clear processes and assign responsibilities to embed idea adoption in everyday practice so that this work does not rely on individual initiative alone.
Empower staff to find and experiment with ideas from elsewhere
Across cities, examples show that when staff are encouraged to explore and engage with outside practices, knowledge exchange becomes easier. Inspired, driven staff members can play a critical role in supporting the adaptation and adoption of good ideas from elsewhere. Creating a structure that allows staff members to take initiative and innovate, to access resources when they have a good idea, and to be rewarded for their efforts, is a way to support learning from other cities. A majority of cities (56%) surveyed as part of this project characterise the process of introducing an idea as collaborative and transparent, and very few think of it as rigid and hierarchical. Indeed, 52% of cities surveyed use recognition programmes to encourage innovation (Figure 2.2). This suggests that actively consulting, involving and empowering staff is an intrinsic part of existing idea adoption practices.
Note: N=55.
Source: OECD/Bloomberg Philanthropies Survey.
Encouraging staff to find ideas from elsewhere and experiment with them may also imply helping them acquire the skills that support innovation (e.g. data literacy, piloting, user-centred design, storytelling, etc.) (OECD, 2017[12]). Indeed, recent research from the OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) shows that public servants who have this type of skills are also more likely to engage in innovation projects (Hanson and Collao Jul, 2025[13]). Training staff to develop these skills is thus a way to start a virtual cycle of innovation and create a culture of creativity and experimentation.
Implementation tip
There are different ways to encourage staff to take initiative to explore ideas from elsewhere and experiment with them:
Institutionalised internal peer-learning: networks could be created within the city government to connect staff interested in the same issues and working across departments. Together, they could look for innovative solutions to these issues.
Structured ideation events, such as hackathons through which staff members are encouraged to explore and experiment with solutions inspired by examples from other cities.
Recognition of internal champions or policy entrepreneurs who help bridge external ideas with local implementation and connect fragmented departments at the city level. These internal champions should be celebrated and given opportunities to disseminate their learnings, so as to inspire others to follow in their tracks.
Creation of safe spaces for experimentation: securing budgets to establish small-scale pilot labs or dedicated time for testing external ideas in low-stakes settings.
Securing a specific time-endowment for staff who wish to pursue a specific idea transfer project: this allows to recognise that experimentation and learning take time and is a way to encourage participation.
Support experiential learning: funding or granting approval for city staff to travel to other cities to observe promising projects firsthand would strengthen staff’s learning efforts.
Systematic external scanning of ideas: city staff could be encouraged, or formally required, to identify relevant practices from other cities when proposing revisions to existing local initiatives, thereby embedding outward-looking into routine policy development.
Active participation in networks can be institutionally supported as a means of fostering continuous learning, exposure to innovative practices, and a mindset of openness to external ideas.
In Anchorage (the United States), the Mayor defined the fight against homeless as a key priority, and the empowerment of an internal champion enabled action. A Special Assistant to the Mayor, tasked with co‑ordinating programmes against homelessness, was given the autonomy and mandate to connect otherwise fragmented departments and drive implementation. Drawing on a shipping container conversion project developed in Atlanta and shared through the Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange, this role was instrumental in translating an external idea into a local solution. By facilitating co-ordination, aligning resources and maintaining momentum across departments, the project was delivered efficiently within a year.
The Municipality of The Hague (the Netherlands) has taken a complementary approach by creating institutional space for staff-led experimentation. Through the Living Lab Scheveningen, established in 2020, municipal staff are encouraged to initiate and test ideas with local stakeholders, including residents, schools, research organisations, businesses. Staff are encouraged to develop small scale proposals (aiming for a maximum budget of about EUR 25 000) to ensure feasibility and enable rapid experimentation, and required to secure funding for the pilot before working on its development with the Living Lab. This model lowers administrative barriers and allows staff to take initiative in piloting solutions, positioning the Living Lab not only as a partnership platform, but as a practical tool for empowering staff to explore new ideas.
Source: Interviews with cities.
Anchor idea adoption in existing priorities
Cities are exposed to a constant flow of policy ideas, from smart technologies to transport models and housing solutions, often presented as “best practices”. Research shows that adoption decisions are not shaped solely by local needs, but also by political context, available resources, and the symbolic value of keeping pace with peers (Qamar, Pierce and Dobler, 2023[14]). In such an environment, there is a risk that cities prioritise ideas because they are visible, fundable, or reputationally attractive, rather than because they address a clearly prioritised local problem. Every adoption decision entails an opportunity cost: administrative attention, political capital and fiscal resources devoted to one initiative are not available for others.
A strategic approach reverses this dynamic. Rather than starting from circulating solutions and asking whether they might fit, cities can begin with clearly articulated local priorities and then ask whether, where and how external ideas offer added value. This needs-driven adoption can help ensure cities make the most of ideas originating elsewhere. Existing local strategies, long-term visions and sectoral frameworks, particularly those informed by data and/or citizen consultation, already provide a strong foundation for identifying and prioritising challenges. Within this set of priorities, some issues may be especially well-suited to idea adoption. This is the case, for instance, of issues where stakes are high and resources limited, making experimentation from scratch particularly costly. By grounding idea adoption in strategic priorities, cities can avoid the opportunity costs associated with trend-driven initiatives, allocate scarce administrative attention more effectively, and ensure that external learning strengthens long-term policy objectives.
Implementation tip
To prepare for idea adoption, cities can ask the following questions:
What are our priority issues?
What are the most pressing challenges for our city over the next 12-24 months?
Are these priorities clearly articulated in existing strategies?
Does addressing this issue require a genuinely new approach?
Where would learning from other cities meaningfully improve our response to this issue?
Would designing a solution from scratch be costly, risky or inefficient?
Are there proven ideas to explore to reduce trial-and-error?
Would adapting an idea from elsewhere accelerate delivery or impact?
Are we realistically positioned to adopt an idea from elsewhere?
What limits do we face in terms of funding, staff capacity, legal competences, or political support? Would idea adoption be a way to better work with these constraints? Would some of these constraints limit our capacity to adopt ideas?
Are there any upcoming political or budgetary windows that enable or constrain idea adoption?
What is already in place, and how well is it working?
Which existing programmes or services already address this issue?
Where are they falling short in terms of impact, efficiency, or sustainability?
Could ideas from elsewhere help improve or complement what already exists?
Who is already working on this issue within government, and how could synergies be created?
By anchoring idea adoption in local strategies, cities can ensure that idea adoption, as a method, reinforces existing policy commitments and generates measurable public value.
The examples of Thessaloniki, Okayama and Melbourne show how cities start from locally defined strategies and priorities, and then selectively draw on ideas from elsewhere to address identified challenges, rather than adopting “best practices” in isolation. The Metropolitan Development Agency of Thessaloniki (Greece) and the Municipality of Okayama (Japan) note that they approach idea adoption within a framework set by pre-defined policy priorities. Through policy strategies, both local governments set a vision for their city, an ideal to thrive towards. This ideal reflects a future in which key issues have been solved. Once this ideal is set, engaging with ideas from elsewhere is a way to work towards solving these issues.
In Thessaloniki, the local government worked with the Resilient Cities Network to develop the Thessaloniki Resilience Strategy. The Metropolitan Development Agency of Thessaloniki (MDAT) attributes the strategy’s success to the fact that the municipalities within the metropolitan area first agreed on a shared vision, and then selectively drew on external good practices that aligned with that vision, allowing resources to be focused on local priorities.
In Okayama, the municipality always starts from the issues that have been pre-identified as priorities. To develop solutions to these issues, the local government combines two approaches: first, reviewing local data and evidence to better characterise the issue. Second, researching what other cities are doing, focusing on cities displaying similar characteristics and facing similar challenges. The municipality may consider adopting an idea from elsewhere when the city characteristics match and when the features of the idea appear adapted to the local issue. Most of the time, researching ideas from elsewhere supports the development of local policies “from scratch”, those being informed by these inspirational cases.
Anchoring idea adoption in local strategies means identifying not only high-priority challenges, but also those where internal capacity is limited. In such cases, learning from elsewhere can provide a resource-efficient way to address urgent needs without starting from scratch. Melbourne’s (Australia) experience illustrates how external ideas can help cities tackle priority issues that would otherwise remain beyond their immediate capacity. This is what Melbourne did with junk food advertising. Working with the Partnership for Healthy Cities, a global network of more than 70 cities supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the World Health Organization and global health organisation Vital Strategies, Melbourne received technical support and has drawn on examples from Greater Manchester and London to lay the groundwork for stronger junk food advertising restrictions at a time external inspiration and support were especially valuable.
Source: Interviews with cities.
How the national government can help
Aligning idea adoption with priorities set at higher levels of government can also create opportunities to leverage support. National and regional authorities often translate their policy priorities into dedicated programmes, funding streams and partnerships that can support local implementation. Positioning an externally inspired idea within these broader policy priorities can therefore increase a city’s capacity to unlock financial resources, or benefit from technical assistance and regulatory support.
In Canada, for example, national-level programmes explicitly aim to support and incentivise local action in key priority areas. Through the Housing Accelerator Fund, the Government of Canada uses incentives and partnerships with local governments to encourage planning reforms, streamline approvals, and improve local conditions for housing delivery. The National Housing Strategy provides sustained support for affordable and community housing, homelessness reduction and improved outcomes for vulnerable populations, while the Build Communities Strong Fund supports projects that help connect people to services and opportunity.
These examples illustrate how aligning local initiatives with national priorities can make the adoption of ideas from other cities more actionable, by connecting them to existing policy frameworks and sources of support.
Engage with networks to identify ideas and benefit from support
Peer-to-peer learning enables ideas to travel, and to benefit from others’ successes, cities may engage in networks that disseminate knowledge about policy innovation and help them identify knowledgeable partners willing to share ideas. When engaged strategically, these channels can help cities identify solutions that best respond to their own priorities, capacities, and their own contexts. This was prominent in the OECD/Bloomberg Philanthropies survey as it was circulated, among other cities, to members of the OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth network. Within this specific group, city networks are the most common channel for discovering new ideas, regularly used by two-thirds (67%) of responding cities.
Cities that actively map and participate in their stakeholder ecosystem, whether through city networks such as C40, URBACT, or the OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth (see Box 2.3), or thanks to exchanges convened by national ministries, are better positioned to identify innovations that suit their context (Robb et al., 2023[6]). Establishing peer-to-peer relationships allows cities to move beyond one-off exchanges and build coalitions of support. International networks in particular offer powerful platforms for collaboration: the multiple policy cultures and institutional settings reflected in these networks enhance the variety of approaches highlighted. Moreover, some of them also offer financial support to cities who wish to engage in peer-learning exercises or adopt an idea from elsewhere. Finally, external perspectives may help identify blind spots and ensure the robustness of interventions.
Networks are not only a valuable resource to identify inspiring ideas, but they may also allow cities to learn from peers about ideas-in-the-making to accelerate and optimise the delivery of new approaches. Indeed, when cities confront emerging challenges or seek to integrate novel solutions, even the most advanced ones may not yet have a fully tested or transferable model to share with peers. In these contexts, the value of peer learning lies less in replication than in collective exploration. In such contexts, structuring a city’s internal capacity to learn from elsewhere may imply setting up processes for dynamic exchanges with peers: as innovation teams across cities simultaneously experiment, test, and refine new approaches, regular interactions allow them to learn together. Several networks support these exchanges (URBACT Action Planning Network, the European Urban Federation City-to-city exchanges, the INTERREG Policy Learning Platform). These mutual learning approaches can reduce the risks and costs of experimentation for each individual city.
Cities can learn not only from what works, but also from what does not. However, communicating openly about challenges and failures becomes more difficult once a project has been completed, as it may be interpreted as a sign that resources were used inefficiently or that expected benefits were not fully realised. Collaborating during the development of a policy helps address this challenge, as it enables cities to share unsuccessful attempts in real time, while approaches are still being tested, adjusted and refined to improve impact.
Implementation tip
The following questions can be used to guide the implementation of this action.
Where do I need the most help from networks and institutions? For example:
Identifying ideas (learning)?
Validating potential idea fit (assessment)?
Accessing implementation support (adaption and implementation)?
Which networks or institutions could help identify new policy solutions? Which networks is my city already a part of?
What does each network bring (e.g. technical support, face-to-face learning opportunities, capacity building, funding, national/regional/international peer-learning opportunities, etc.)?
What are my needs and based on that, which network is best suited to my need?
Which cities in a given network are most comparable to mine, and therefore most relevant learning partners?
Which individuals within an identified network can act as trusted peers or reference points for my city?
Cities engage with networks in different ways depending on whether they seek to identify and adopt existing ideas, spread a successful idea they developed, or co-develop new approaches under uncertainty. The following cases illustrate the distinct types of value that networks can provide depending on local priorities.
Renca (Chile), the State of Jalisco (Mexico) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) have benefitted from the support of city networks in finding, adapting, implementing or spreading an idea from elsewhere.
Renca developed an ambitious youth policy, including a drug use prevention component, by adapting an approach successfully implemented in Iceland, which has now evolved into a comprehensive, universal life-trajectory strategy named Crecer en Renca (Growth in Renca). The mayor of Renca learned about the Icelandic Drug Prevention model at the 2019 OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth meeting in Athens, when it was presented by the Mayor of Reykjavik (Iceland). The OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth is a network of mayors focusing on inclusive economic growth and social equity in cities. Beyond simple information-sharing, the network created a direct political connection between peers, which helped build trust in the model and facilitated its uptake. In this case, the network’s primary contribution was to provide exposure to a concrete programme combined with political endorsement and peer-to-peer exchange at the mayoral level.
The State of Jalisco had set itself the goal of disseminating Visor Urbano, an innovative business licensing and land-use management platform originally developed in the City of Guadalajara, statewide. Bloomberg Philanthropies offered technical support and funding to help the State of Jalisco government create a network of cities learning about and adopting this solution. As of 2026, 65 cities in Mexico have replicated Visor Urbano. In this case, the network acted as an implementation partner providing financial resources and hands-on technical support to enable replication at scale. In these cases, the network’s added value lay in bridging between cities and supporting the translation of an existing model into a locally implementable solution.
Dar es Salaam discovered an inspiring waste-management programme implemented in Accra through the Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange, an initiative to ease the spread of successful ideas from originator cities to adopter cities, and its partners, including C40. The city requested support to replicate this programme locally, and received help to gather information, organise site visits, and adapt the programme to local needs with the support of consultants. It is through this same programme that the city of Anchorage found out about a different idea: an emergency housing initiative from Atlanta, which was adapted and implemented locally with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies.
In policy areas where no established models exist, city networks can provide a space for learning alongside peers facing similar uncertainties, rather than copying existing approaches. Tallinn (Estonia), Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Rome (Italy) have used such collaborations to co-develop, refine and challenge emerging approaches, rather than adopt ready-made solutions. Tallinn has worked on developing a new approach to sustainability governance aimed at reorganising local institutions to better deliver transformative projects for sustainable transitions. Because such governance models are still evolving and no established blueprint exists, Tallinn launched its Tallinn Sustainability Governance Peer Learning Hub, which hosted several peer learning events and seminars where cities including Helsinki (Finland), Strasbourg (France), Stuttgart (Germany), and Ghent (Belgium) shared their experiences working on similar topics. With support from the INTERREG Policy Learning Platform, Tallinn also shared a draft sustainability governance framework with Malmö (Sweden) and Madrid (Spain) and received feedback from these peers who were simultaneously grappling with similar questions. Experts from Public Strategy for Sustainable Development (PS4SD) (Belgium), the International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) and UCL (the United Kingdom) also contributed to the process. This method enabled iterative refinement of the strategy, while also allowing peer cities to draw insights from Tallinn’s work as they developed their own approaches. Here, the network functioned as a structured environment for peer review and collective problem-solving at the design stage.
Similarly, as part of the URBACT Project Innovato-R, bringing together Torino (Italy), Porto (Portugal), Paris (France), Cluj Napoca (Romania), Veszprem (Hungary), Murcia (Spain), and the Greater Paris Metropolis (France), the Rotterdam Digital Innovation team and its peers chose to document their implementation processes through regular video updates. Rather than waiting to compare results at the end of the project, cities shared challenges, interim decisions, and setbacks in real time. This enabled mutual learning at each stage of the project lifecycle, as cities experimented with different approaches and adjusted their own practices based on what peers were discovering in parallel. In this case, the network supported real-time, practice-based learning during implementation.
Rome has also taken a distinct approach to learning from peer feedback, even when developing innovative projects from scratch. The Italian capital developed a novel approach to using urban regeneration as a lever to improve residents’ well-being and mental health. Rather than implementing the initiative in isolation, the city has chosen to share and refine the approach through structured exchanges with peer cities, including Lisbon (Portugal), the Aix Marseille Provence Metropolis (France), and Ramnicu Valcea (Romania). These exchanges have enabled Rome to receive continuous feedback on its assumptions, design choices and implementation methods. This illustrates how networks can provide external challenge and validation, helping cities identify blind spots and strengthen the robustness of locally generated ideas, even when they are not directly adopting a pre-existing model.
Note: This toolkit does not promote a network over another. Networks are only listed as examples.
Source: Interviews with cities.
Introduce clear processes and assign responsibilities to embed idea adoption in everyday practice and reduce reliance on individual initiative alone
Past research conducted by the OECD and Bloomberg Philanthropies (2019[15]) shows that dedicated teams can play a crucial role in strengthening public sector innovation capacity. This is closely linked to idea adoption, as both rely on similar functions. In particular, “knowledge scanning”, i.e. the systematic identification of ideas developed elsewhere, has been identified as one of the three key methods used by European public sector innovation agencies (Arundel, Casali and Hollanders, 2015[16]).
Similar organisational arrangements within cities can also support idea adoption. One option cities may consider is to assign clear responsibility for learning from elsewhere to specific teams, taskforces, units, or even departments with a mandate to scan external ideas, test their relevance locally, and support the scaling of what works. Such arrangements help move idea adoption from an ad hoc activity to a more structured and strategic process.
Dedicated capacity for idea adoption can also help secure time and resources for peer learning, create spaces for experimentation outside of the formal policymaking process. It can also strengthen institutional memory around how external ideas are identified and adapted and facilitate the diffusion of knowledge across municipal departments. Such arrangements can support agile learning processes, enabling the rapid piloting, adaptation, and scaling of promising initiatives (OECD, 2020[17]). By working across departments, they can also help cities explore solutions to cross-cutting challenged, foster cross-sectoral collaboration and create a sense of shared ownership across different teams.
Implementation tip:
A dedicated idea adoption team can be most effective when its mandate is clearly defined around a bounded set of practical functions across the idea adoption process. Drawing on the “Tricky Transfer” project conducted by UN DESA and the Ash Center at Harvard (de Jong, Dent and Folsom, 2026[18]), this may include:
Identify relevant ideas by systematically scanning peer cities, summarising relevant ideas for internal terms, and ensure that existing evidence and lessons are actively shared across departments.
Assess local fit early by considering how factors such as governance, capacity and political constraints may affect adaptation, and identifying risks upfront.
Co-ordinate across the organisation by mapping key stakeholders, anticipating where collaboration may be needed, and aligning departments before piloting or scaling an idea.
Renca (Chile) has put in place dedicated structures to support the identification, adaptation, and implementation of ideas from elsewhere, particularly for complex, cross-sectoral projects. Two complementary arrangements play this role. First, a co-ordination department is responsible for delivering projects that cut across policy areas and administrative silos. Second, the municipal innovation hub, La Fábrica (Factory) connects city staff with residents, businesses and universities to co-create solutions. Renca’s experience adapting Iceland’s Planet Youth model into its own programme, Fuerza Joven, highlighted the need for sustained cross-sector co-ordination and long-term engagement with external actors. The value of both structures, which had been created before, became even more visible. Together, these structures provide dedicated capacity for idea adoption, partnership building, and resource mobilisation, enabling international models to be translated into locally owned, scalable solutions.
Source: Interviews with cities.
References
[16] Arundel, A., L. Casali and H. Hollanders (2015), “How European public sector agencies innovate: The use of bottom-up, policy-dependent and knowledge-scanning innovation methods”, Research Policy, Vol. 44/7, pp. 1271-1282, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2015.04.007.
[2] Burris, S. and V. Lin (2021), “Law and urban governance for health in times of rapid change”, Health Promotion International, Vol. 36/Supplement_1, pp. i4-i12, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daab064.
[18] de Jong, J., W. Dent and J. Folsom (2026), Tricky Transfer: The Challenge of Adopting Innovations from Other Cities, https://cityleadership.harvard.edu/resources/tricky-transfer-the-challenge-of-adopting-innovations-from-other-cities/.
[1] Diep, L. and T. McPhearson (2025), “Empowering cities globally: Four levers for transformative urban adaptation with nature-based solutions”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 122/29, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2315912121.
[5] Dolowitz, D. and D. Marsh (1996), “Who Learns What from Whom: A Review of the Policy Transfer Literature”, Political Studies, Vol. 44/2, pp. 343-357, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1996.tb00334.x.
[11] Evans, J. et al. (2025), “Grand challenges in sustainable cities: urban innovation for global climate and sustainability goals—from policy agenda to research needs”, Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, Vol. 7, https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2025.1568701.
[13] Hanson, A. and J. Collao Jul (2025), Toward a new approach to innovation skills and applied capabilities, https://oecd-opsi.org/blog/toward-a-new-approach-to-innovation-skills-and-applied-capabilities/.
[3] Kingdon, J. (1984), “Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies”.
[4] Li, L., A. Taeihagh and S. Tan (2022), “What factors drive policy transfer in smart city development? Insights from a Delphi study”, Sustainable Cities and Society, Vol. 84, p. 104008, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2022.104008.
[10] Mosqueira, E. and M. Alessandro (2023), State Capacities and Wicked Problems of Public Policy: Addressing Vulnerabilities that Affect Human Development, Inter-American Development Bank, https://doi.org/10.18235/0005052.
[17] OECD (2020), Broad-based Innovation Policy for All Regions and Cities, OECD Regional Development Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/299731d2-en.
[15] OECD (2019), Enhancing Innovation Capacity in City Government, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f10c96e5-en.
[12] OECD (2017), Core Skills for Public Sector Innovation, https://oecd-opsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/OECD_OPSI-core_skills_for_public_sector_innovation-201704.pdf.
[14] Qamar, F., A. Pierce and G. Dobler (2023), “Covariance in policy diffusion: Evidence from the adoption of hyperlocal air quality monitoring programs by US cities”, Cities, Vol. 138, p. 104363, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2023.104363.
[6] Robb, K. et al. (2023), “Inter‐city collaboration: Why and how cities work, learn and advocate together”, Global Policy, Vol. 14/5, pp. 663-675, https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13292.
[9] Schulze, K. (2024), “The soft channels of policy diffusion: Insights from local climate change adaptation policy”, Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 52/4, pp. 881-906, https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12555.
[8] Voorwinden, A., E. van Bueren and L. Verhoef (2023), “Experimenting with collaboration in the Smart City: Legal and governance structures of Urban Living Labs”, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 40/4, p. 101875, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2023.101875.
[7] Willems, J. and M. Giezen (2022), “Understanding the institutional work of boundary objects in climate-proofing cities: The case of Amsterdam Rainproof”, Urban Climate, Vol. 44, p. 101222, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101222.