About this Report
The Civic Accelerator pilot project is an initiative co-developed by the City of Guelph‘s innovation team and the Guelph Lab, which has a mandate to leverage research from the University of Guelph and apply it to real life problems. It is one example of what can happen when a city government reimagines how they do procurement within the existing regulatory context, in order to provide better services to citizens, on one hand, and create commercialization opportunities for early stage businesses on the other.
We know governments across the country are considering procurement experiments of their own. We believe that insights from Guelph’s Civic Accelerator might be instructive. We walk interested readers through this as follows: first, we briefly explain the Civic Accelerator model; then we examine whether the Civic Accelerator pilot is achieving its goals; we then dive into the model to glean how it actually works; and, finally, we conclude by sharing some thoughts on what we are likely to see next in Guelph and beyond.
Read this report to help you:
- Understand traditional government procurement practices and how Guelph’s Civic Accelerator has innovated the process within the existing policy framework.
- Learn about the role of government in supporting early-stage companies through co-development and procurement of goods and services.
- Learn more about how Guelph’s Civic Accelerator pilot project could inform similar practices in other municipalities.