Southampton in an adventure with scientists

By being the first UK council to appoint a chief scientific adviser, Southampton is giving its citizens a head start for the future.
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Council appoints scientific advisor
Richard Williams, leader of Southampton city council (left), with Professor AbuBakr Bahaj, who has been appointed as a chief scientific adviser. Photograph: University Of Southampton/PA

Cities in the UK are currently facing financial pressures, resulting in reductions in services, economic growth and in some instances social upheaval. New ways will need to be identified that will enable our cities and local authorities to overcome such financial hurdles and plan for growth through the improvement of living spaces, infrastructure and investment in new technologies fit for the 21st century.

Most cities have a local university, which encompasses knowledge and human resources that are under-utilised by local authorities. This will need to change so that the city and its university's resources can be coupled to achieve a step change in joined-up thinking, informed by science and engineering, optimised to be effective in bringing the needed changes for both resource efficiency and economic growth.

Both the city of Southampton and the University of Southampton recognise that this linkage is important not only for utilisation of the council's scarce resources but also for making well-informed plans to regenerate a city's activities. Hence my being appointed by Southampton city council as the first chief scientific adviser (CSA) associated with a local authority in the UK.

The role of a city CSA is not only to provide advice in addressing the above challenges, but also to establish city- and region-wide networks that will create new mechanisms to support local authorities and its communities.

Today about 51% of the world's population live in cities, which occupy about 2% of land mass yet consume approximately 80% of the global resources. The world population is projected to grow to 9 billion by 2050 from its current estimate of 7 billion. Such an increase will undoubtedly affect the urban areas of the world, requiring new thinking in how cities could adapt to such population growth.

For instance, the traditional delivery mechanisms of services and processes, the supply of resources as well as the impact of a changing climate, will pose significant challenges to a city, its population and its infrastructure. The latter includes energy, water, transport, communications, waste management and other services that are deemed necessary for the city to function. Furthermore, cities are the main drivers of economic activities and growth and their outputs are highly dependent on infrastructure that is geared to serve its inhabitants and create vibrant commercial activities.

Having a CSA could allow councils in the short term to address issues such as improving the energy efficiency credentials for their buildings. The insulation of homes, for example, could be rolled out coherently, starting with council-owned properties.

The CSA could also help councils establish guidance and approaches on microgeneration technologies. It is clear that the generation of heat or electrical power at household level and community-wide schemes using renewable energy resources and district heating systems will play a major role in the delivery of energy to domestic and commercial entities in the future.

On the planning front, councils will need to pool resources to address deficiencies of understanding of new technologies, especially those related to energy generation and efficiency in buildings.

Council activities in local industry, support services and supply chains need to support low-carbon development. So a CSA could advise councils to look at regional opportunities and available funding mechanisms to achieve this.

Finally, the advancement of technologies and expansion of information technology offer a fantastic opportunity for councils to establish geographical information systems that cover city- or region-wide datasets on buildings and their current state of energy. This would provide their citizens with better information.

So a CSA has an important role to play in helping a city to plan for the challenges ahead, to enhance the performance of the city and the quality of life of its inhabitants.

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