Belfast City To Improve Urban Parks

Belfast City Council and the Department of Justice to fund projects that help manage and improve urban parks and open spaces.

10:56 01 November 2018

Belfast City Council and the Department of Justice and Dublin City Council are offering funding to organisations that can increase visitor numbers and raise positive perceptions of public spaces using data-driven innovations.

 

The Amazing Space, Smart Places Challenge, which is being run under the Small Business Research Initiative, offers up to £120,000 and focuses on Belfast, but there may be opportunities to develop proofs of concept in Dublin as well.

 

 

Areas of interest could include using connected devices to measure the impact of investment decisions, gathering real-time data to better understand the use of public spaces, creating interactive ‘playable city’ experiences that engage and inform users, exploring how user-oriented design could encourage positive behaviour, and putting new technologies into existing and planned infrastructure.

 

Potentially, the competition will have two phases; for phase 1, organisations would demonstrate a working prototype that the city council can test, with a potential route to market. Phase 2 would focus on building on successful phase 1 projects and look at how they could be further developed beyond Dublin and Belfast.