The Governing Board of the city of Madrid has approved this morning the initial draft of the Ordinance regulating the controlled testing environment for innovative projects in the city of Madrid, which will turn the capital into a large 'sandbox', a safe space where different products, services and innovative projects can be tested and put into practice for a limited period of time. The future ordinance will include the necessary regulations for the development of tests and trials in different spaces of the capital, always based on different calls that the City Council promotes depending on the interest detected and with the aim of improving the quality of urban life.
As explained by the deputy mayor and spokesperson of the government team, Inma Sanz, Madrid has established itself in recent years as the main reference in Spain in terms of innovation thanks to various initiatives that have led to the opening of the city to entrepreneurship and the reception of new ideas and solutions. The Madrid City Council has detected that all those technological developments based on innovation need spaces or environments to test and verify their technical feasibility and obtain the necessary information for their future evolution.
For this reason, the Consistory, through the Delegate Area of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, launches the development of this ordinance with a double objective: on the one hand, to provide the City Council with the necessary tools and procedures to manage, in safe conditions, the evolution of innovation in the city, which will allow to evaluate future innovations and technological advances with a view to their possible implementation, in addition to promoting the attraction of talent and economic activity in the city. On the other hand, it will facilitate the innovation process by simplifying the procedures for finding a real space in which to test new technological solutions and developments.
Through the new ordinance, the Madrid City Council aims to achieve the following specific objectives:
- Promote the initiative of companies, startups and innovators in general in the development of the city through participation in the controlled test environment.
- Attract and promote innovation in the city of Madrid, involving the agents of the innovation ecosystem.
- Contribute to the global strategic positioning of Madrid as a city that promotes innovation.
Municipal calls for proposals
The new ordinance will regulate access to a controlled test environment for those innovative projects that request it and that are related to a wide variety of subjects such as sustainability, economy, energy, safety, mobility, accessibility, tourism or elements of urban furniture and public roads and spaces.
The projects and developments will be selected through different calls for proposals that the City Council will promote with the aim of improving the quality of urban life. These include initiatives related to the search for solutions to reduce carbon emissions through sustainable mobility, proposals related to road safety with intelligent traffic management systems or the optimization of energy distribution and consumption, among others.
Attracting investment and talent to the capital city
According to a report by the association Madrid Futuro, the implementation of a specific regulation that facilitates the development of Madrid as a sandbox for innovative projects will attract up to 500 million euros in investment in the city, create more than 5,000 technological jobs and place Madrid in the top ten in attracting university talent globally.
The same report foresees a significant impact on the city's social environment and on citizens' lives, including improvements in the quality of life through access to advanced services in areas such as health, social care, education, culture or tourism, thanks to technological innovations. /