SMART Cymru Open Innovation Funding supports Amey Consulting to develop concepts and opportunities for innovation in the Cardiff Capital Region.

Amey Consulting is building upon the recent qualitative research undertaken on understanding the infrastructure and transportation needs of communities in the Cardiff Capital Region, following the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first phase, Amey worked with over 60 local organisations and conducted a series of digital roundtables to capture the issues affecting local businesses and their respective communities, seeking opinions from a diverse range of public and private sector organisations and community groups on local challenges that should be addressed to help create more cohesive communities. The research initiative also focussed on where and how people wanted to travel to work in the future.

Following the roundtables, Amey explored the results in greater detail to understand what projects and technologies could be developed, and what future collaborations would be required.  The recently published white paper summarises the findings from the research project. The output of the project will include a variety of potential projects that will provide economic impact and social value to the region that could be taken forward.

This project has the potential to help deliver solutions that better utilise existing infrastructure, reduce travel and help regenerate high streets. Consideration will be given to areas including; the circular economy, new working environments, decarbonisation, the future of public transport, new mobility concepts and the creation of an innovation ecosystem.

During the project, Amey will develop their approach to embedding open innovation practices in the business in Wales, leading to a culture change that can be sustainable in the longer term.

With over 1800 consultants, engineers and designers, Amey Consulting is one of the UK’s leading engineering consultancies, with a strong reputation for asset management and pragmatic and deliverable infrastructure designs. Amey Consulting also has an emerging reputation as a market leader in data and analytics applications within the infrastructure sector. https://www.amey.co.uk/amey-consulting/