Lisbon, June 30, 2025 (Lusa) - The creation of a single brand and a common data management system are part of a strategy presented on Monday to promote the 18 local authorities of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML) as an international innovation hub.
The Innovation Strategy for the AML, carried out in conjunction with the Nova Information Management School (Nova IMS), was presented today in Beato, Lisbon, after more than four years of work.
During this period, the current situation of the AML was characterised, and a strategic innovation plan and an action plan were established which aim, in a realistic scenario, to progressively improve the international projection of the AML in the coming years, without “megalomania”, said Vítor dos Santos, project leader at Nova IMS.
According to him, the strategy was designed based on axes such as the “symbolic capital” of the AML, “a zone of intelligence”, “courses of investigation, training and development”, “creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation” and “marketing”, which require the collaboration, trust and involvement of public entities, universities, the business community and research and technology centres, competitiveness clusters and other actors in the “collaborative metropolitan ecosystem”.
The local authorities have established 10 specific projects to be taken into account in the near future, of which the creation of an innovation management platform and a metropolitan brand were voted the most urgent, in addition to the need to improve the AML’s communication and create partnerships.
“These projects reflect what local authorities said were really important from the point of view of innovation strategy,” said Vítor dos Santos, stressing that the AML brand should be used whenever local authorities speak together and will enable them to “say to the outside world: here is the brand of one of the most innovative regions in Europe”.
The plan also suggests improvements in metropolitan governance, including shared information systems for integrated data management.
The creation of a digital platform will make it possible to integrate initiatives at metropolitan level, given that these measures are currently “scattered and implemented at local authority level”.
The project also includes medium-priority initiatives, such as the creation of metropolitan identity routes, which include the creation of tourist itineraries and a “green route for culture at the metropolitan level” and low-priority initiatives, such as “AML Social”, which will bring together “relevant inter-municipal social solidarity initiatives”.
According to Vítor dos Santos, the strategy presented today is only the starting point and has a timetable that provides for these 10 projects to be implemented in three years.
"The budget we've estimated for this is not even €1 million. For me that would be a lot of money, but maybe in public terms it's considered “no money”. It's more a question of will than resources," he said.
During the public presentation, the president of the Lisbon and Tagus Valley Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR-LVT), Teresa Almeida, emphasised that one of the main challenges of a metropolitan strategy will be to establish "collaborative networking in a very asymmetrical territory", since "the Setúbal Peninsula area alone and the Greater Lisbon area are already two absolutely different territories".
"I like Moita very much, I really do, but we all know that Moita has an added difficulty in being able to compete in this metropolitan territory in an equivalent way to other local authorities," she said.
The action plan and other documentation for the AML innovation strategy are available at https://documentacao.aml.pt/.
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