Innovations in a range of 155 cities across Europe has been highlighted in submissions made by these cities to the 2014 Mayors Challenge, an initiative sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies following a similar competition in America.. The competition led to Barcelona declared the winner with Stockholm, Warsaw, Athens and Kirklees runners up.

The Mayors Challenge led to five core themes being identified, all of which are important in learning cities. These were: Economy: doing more with less; Civic engagement: facilitating citizen action; Social inclusion : building trust and value; Health and well-being; Environment : securing the future.

The winning Barcelona innovation was an innovation named Vincles BCN which involved building a social media network to support senior citizens. Barcelona like many cities in Europe and elsewhere has an ageing population with 20% of the population over 65 so that this innovation has an immediate relevance to a significant proportion of the population.

The Warsaw innovation was also in the inclusion area with the Virtual Warsaw projrcy giving the visually  impaired greater access to the city. This initiative includes installing new technology in public transport, public buildings, leisure and cultural sites.

The success of Kitklees, a small community in the UK, with its Comoodle initiative which enabled private, municipal, and NGO assets and skills to be shared showed that small communities can be innovative. This was a clear lessons fron the PASCAL PIE program with examples from cities such as Cork and the Hume Global Learning Village.

An overall insight was that most of the innovations were about connecting people. The report of this initiative may be read on the LSE Cities web site (www.lsecities.net.