Public Sector InnovationCity of Skopje Innovation Center – SkopjeLab (North Macedonia)
Overview
SkopjeLab, the City of Skopje Innovation Center, was the first public sector innovation centre founded within a public institution in the Balkans. It brought city staff, citizens and partners together to redesign city services, open city data, co-design public spaces and build innovation skills in the administration.
Managed by SmartUp, with a team of researchers, designers and strategists working side by side with city staff inside the City's Citizens' Information Centre, SkopjeLab followed a human-centred process, from research and co-design to testing and implementation, to find new answers to the City's challenges and to show the value of including citizens' views in decisions.
Over the years SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, redesigned three city services with the staff and people who use them: bulky waste collection, grants for NGOs and the “correct address” service. Eleven city grant and subsidy schemes moved to online application, and culture grant applications grew more than five-fold once the call went online. The lab opened city data through the City Inspectorate dashboards and a communication tool for the inspectors, and trained more than 150 public administration employees through capacity building for the City’s administration.
SkopjeLab also opened public space design to residents. Edition 1 led to five squares built from residents’ concepts, and Edition 2 brought mentors, students and citizens together in a full co-design process that produced nine detailed concept designs. Other work ran from the Rock Hackathon, which SmartUp facilitated, to the Velo parking design challenge, which led to the first bike parking hub in Skopje. The sections below show how each area worked and what it left behind.
The challenge
Services not built around citizens’ needs
City services were designed around internal procedures, not the people who use them. Grant applications ran on paper, bulky waste collection was a small manual service, and the “correct address” service depended on institutions that held different records. Residents had to work out the process and forms on their own. These services needed to be redesigned with users and tested before anything was built.
Decisions without shared, explorable data
Air pollution and waste were priorities from the first year. Some city data was already open, but it sat in separate systems held by different departments and was hard to explore, while trust in local government was low. The City needed to collect, connect, open and visualise more data so decisions rested on evidence people could see.
Skills for new ways of working
City staff needed ways to learn and practise design, research and digital methods on real work. Later reviews named project management, financial instruments, public-private partnerships and citizen participation as areas that still needed training.
Activities and methods
Over four and a half years SkopjeLab ran projects in five areas: capacity building, citizen engagement, digitalisation and service redesign, urban resilience, and green and sustainable development. Most of the projects below have their own page.
- Co-creation & innovation processes. Co-design with the people who use the service or the space: Redesign of the bulky waste collection service; Redesign of the service for grants for NGOs and the e-applications platform; Redesign of the "correct address" service; Redesign of public spaces, Edition 1, research with residents that led to concept designs, seven of which went to a City tender; Redesign of public spaces, Edition 2, an open co-design process with mentors and young people that produced nine concept designs; the Rock Hackathon, facilitated by SmartUp; and the public design challenge behind Velo parking. SkopjeLab also ran open events and competitions for residents, among them seven TEDxSalon events in 2017-2018 and an energy-efficiency design competition in 2020.
- Research, insight & strategy. Evidence for decisions: service evaluation questionnaires for 13 City departments (2018-2019); user testing of the national e-services portal (2017); a household heating survey of 5,044 homes, run by UNDP in January 2017 and carried on, published and visualised by the lab; a thermal map of the city's hottest spots, researched by the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering and Anadolu University and communicated and published by SkopjeLab; a green cadastre management model developed with the City and the 10 Skopje municipalities; and an impact investment portfolio of about 60 projects.
- Digital platforms & tools. The City's e-applications portal and the NGO register (see the NGO grants page), the dashboards of Inspectorate: open data, the tool built in Inspectorate: communication tool, and the SkopjeSeZagreva heating visualisations.
- Capacity building & learning. Capacity building for public administration: trainings in human-centred design, project development and digital tools, and the City's first innovation framework.
- Pilots, implementation & scaling. From concept to use: five squares were built from the Edition 1 concepts, the first Velo parking hub opened in 2020, an e-support centre helped residents apply for city grants and subsidies (see Digital All), and SkopjeLab supported the founding of the Skopje Development Institute.
Impact and learning
Skills. According to the lab's report, more than 150 public administration employees from the City, partner municipalities and public enterprises took part in its workshops, trainings and programmes. The City received its first innovation framework.
Services. Three city services were redesigned with staff and users: bulky waste collection, grants for NGOs and the "correct address" service. The culture grants call also moved online. The public utility implemented many of the recommendations for the bulky waste service, and the "correct address" service reached a tested draft in the national e-services format.
Online applications. Eleven city grant and subsidy schemes moved to online application on the City's e-applications portal, among them culture, NGO, education, entrepreneurship, consumer protection, craftsmen, chimney cleaning, bicycles, e-scooters, and inverter air conditioners and heating. Culture grant applications grew from 138 in 2018 (offline) to 711 in 2020 (online), more than five-fold.
Data. Three interactive data platforms were built: the City Inspectorate dashboards, SkopjeSeZagreva (a household heating survey of 5,044 homes) and a platform mapping the circular economy in North Macedonia.
Public spaces. Edition 1 led to concept designs, seven of which went to a City tender, and five squares were built. Edition 2 produced nine concept designs with 35 participants and eight mentors. These remain concept designs and were not built.
Velo parking. A public design challenge of about two months with 11 design teams and around 50 citizens. The first bike parking hub opened at the Transport Centre on 29 September 2020. See Velo parking.
Continuity. An impact investment portfolio of about 60 projects, a database of more than 4,000 active NGOs in Skopje, a green cadastre management model supported by all 10 municipalities, and support to the founding of the Skopje Development Institute, a foundation of the City and Ss. Cyril and Methodius University. SkopjeLab's team ran five workshops with the founders and prepared the founding documents.
Learning. Digitalising services saves time, increases transparency and makes services easier to reach. People who deal with citizens every day should be part of the design process.
Gallery
Outputs
SkopjeLab website
View websiteCity e-applications portal
View websiteRegister of NGOs in the Skopje region
View websiteSkopjeSeZagreva
View websiteInnovation framework of the City of Skopje (2019, Macedonian, 18 pages)
View documentSkopje's urban green transformation: 5 brand new public squares (30 Jul 2021)
View articleRedesign of Public Spaces in Skopje 2.0: Molding Creative Mindsets (blog)
View linkOur look on design shapes our thinking around systemic change (Medium, 12 Jun 2020)
View linkSkopje thermal map: the warmest hotspots in the city and measures to tackle the problem (blog)
View linkRelated Websites
Related Projects
Kanta.mk - GARB (Interactive Eco Mobile Application)
SmartUp developed Kanta.mk to let residents map waste-container locations, suggest new locations, and report illegal dumping in Skopje. The application was designed to collect information that could support waste-management planning and communication with responsible organisations.
Learn more
Redesign of the bulky waste collection service
Bulky waste collection in Skopje was a small, manual service with no statistics on what was collected. In 2019 SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, mapped the service with the public utility and redesigned it with the City, the utility, experts, citizens and creative industries, through a kick-off workshop and a series of co-design workshops. The result was a design and implementation package, and the public utility has since implemented many of the recommendations.
Learn more
Redesign of the service for grants for NGOs and the e-applications platform
City funding for civil society organisations in Skopje depended on paper applications and on departments that did not share information. From September 2020 SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, mapped the service with city staff, designed the user experience for several types of user, built a simple version of an online platform, trained administrators and tested it with 20 users. A web register of Skopje NGOs followed in 2021.
Learn more
Redesign of the "correct address" service
The City of Skopje's "correct address" service had to meet the national requirements for services listed on the e-services portal. In 2021 SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, analysed it with the City departments involved, held two working sessions, mapped the process in detail and drafted the service in the format of the national e-services form. The new model was tested with 50 users. Registration in the national catalogue was the next step.
Learn more
Redesign of public spaces, Edition 1
In 2018 SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, asked Skopje residents which neglected green spaces needed attention, then studied each site through interviews, observation and an online questionnaire. The research led to concept designs, and seven of them went to a City tender for execution designs in October 2019. Five green squares were built in 2020-2021.
Learn more
Redesign of public spaces, Edition 2
From December 2019 to February 2020, SmartUp designed and facilitated, through SkopjeLab, a two-round co-creation process in which 35 participants, guided by eight mentors, co-designed small public spaces in Skopje. Mentors and participants were recruited by public call, every team began with fieldwork, and the process produced nine detailed concept designs.
Learn more
Inspectorate: open data (interactive dashboards)
With the City of Skopje's Department for Inspectorate, SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, digitised six months of inspection records and turned them into interactive Power BI dashboards: a public version without personal data and an internal version for the Inspectorate's staff. Reported results include changes in policies and staffing and preventive work on waste disposal.
Learn more
Inspectorate: communication tool
At the request of the head of the City of Skopje's Department for Inspectorate, SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, designed with Inspectorate staff an internal tool, built on Freshdesk, to log, assign and follow reports that arrive by phone and social media. Staff were trained in October 2019, and the City's project page reports 60 Inspectorate employees as users of the tool.
Learn more
Rock Hackathon
In November 2018 the City of Skopje, the Faculty of Architecture and SkopjeLab, with Ecopreneurs for the Climate, held a hackathon in Skopje that invited students, young professionals and entrepreneurs to develop eco-business ideas that reuse cultural heritage to create green public spaces in the Old Bazaar. SmartUp's role was facilitation.
Learn more
Capacity building for the City of Skopje’s public administration
Between 2017 and 2021 SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, ran workshops, trainings and online modules for staff of the City of Skopje administration and its partners, mainly other municipalities and public enterprises. Topics included human-centred design, design thinking for project proposals, digital research methods and everyday digital tools. The lab's report records more than 150 participants. SmartUp, through SkopjeLab, also produced the City's first innovation framework.
Learn more
Velo Parking: co-designing bicycle infrastructure in Skopje
SmartUp ran an open design competition with GIZ and the City of Skopje: 22 applications, 11 multidisciplinary teams, and three awarded designs for a bicycle-parking area at Skopje's Transport Centre, followed by construction.
Learn more
#SkopjeSeZagreva: interactive open-data visualisations
SmartUp turned household-heating data from 5,044 homes in the Skopje region into interactive Power BI tools in three languages, so residents, institutions, and policymakers can explore the findings and test scenarios themselves.
Learn more
Inclusive and Successful Digital Transformation for All – DIGITAL ALL (North Macedonia)
SmartUp set up an e-government support centre inside the City of Skopje's Info Center, helping residents and organisations apply online for city subsidies and grants. We trained the support agents and city staff, co-designed new services with the administration, and developed an online register of civil society organisations, as a sub-grantee in the ICEDA programme.
Learn more
Impact Investment Portfolio for Local Governments (within Future Cities of SEE Project) (North Macedonia, Skopje)
Through Future Cities of South East Europe, SmartUp worked with the City of Skopje to build an impact investment portfolio. We selected the criteria with the City, evaluated around 60 projects, prioritised them and gave detailed feedback, then documented the approach in a guide to impact investing for local government that other municipalities can replicate.
Learn more
Testing of the Portal for Provision of National E-services
SmartUp tested the user experience of North Macedonia's national e-services portal with 31 people while it was still in its first stage of development, for the Ministry of Information Society and Administration with UNDP. The testing produced a report with recommendations across 15 categories, and its findings informed the design of the modernised portal.
Learn more
Physical Space Testing for the Single Point of Service (SPS) Office
SmartUp, in collaboration with Studio Tilt, designed and ran a space-testing process to understand the needs of the people who use the Single Point of Service (SPS) office, managed by the Ministry of Information Society and Administration. We tested a spatial prototype at the actual location with 20 users and turned their feedback into recommendations on accessibility, wayfinding, queue management and ambience.
Learn more
Planning similar work?
SmartUp can support research, co-creation, facilitation, digital tools, implementation, or learning documentation for related programmes.