Shaping cities
through vision and evidence.
What we do
Supporting cities that face
complex social challenges.
Cities worldwide face complex social challenges, unequal access to services, mobility constraints, insecurity and limited economic opportunities. Urbs Nova supports cities in addressing these challenges, fostering more efficient, sustainable and inclusive urban environments. Our services target public administrations, multilateral organisations and private sector actors. Aligned with the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs, we provide technical advisory in urban policy, smart cities and public procurement of innovation.
Evidence-based policy for inclusive cities.
Design, analysis and evaluation of urban policies to reduce segregation, improve territorial equity and promote cohesive, inclusive cities.
Digital transformation that actually works.
Strategies integrating data platforms, IoT and AI to improve urban management, service delivery and citizen experience.
Turn procurement into an innovation engine.
Full-cycle support for OTA and BAA processes, from challenge definition and market engagement to pilot design and post-implementation evaluation.
Who we are
Specialists in urban
policy, smart cities
and public procurement
of innovation.
We are specialists in urban policy, smart cities and public procurement of innovation. Urbs Nova was founded by practitioners who spent years inside multilateral organisations, city governments and innovation agencies, driven by a shared commitment to closing the gap between good urban research and real implementation.
Our team combines economics, urbanism, data science and procurement expertise. We work where complex challenges meet institutional reality: designing policies that reduce inequality, deploying technology that actually serves citizens, and structuring procurement processes that unlock genuine innovation.
The cities that will thrive are not the ones with the most technology, they are the ones that make the best decisions.
- Urbs Nova Founding PrincipleWhat our clients say
Built on trust and results.
Urbs Nova's territorial equity diagnostic gave us the evidence base we needed to prioritise investment across the city's most underserved neighborhoods. Their approach is rigorous, actionable and genuinely collaborative.
Their smart city strategy for the metropolitan area gave us a vendor-neutral roadmap that survived two election cycles. The governance framework is still the reference document.
Who we work with
Solutions by organisation type.
We work with public administrations at every level, from local governments managing rapid urbanisation to national ministries and multilateral organisations designing systemic reform.
- Territorial equity diagnostics and urban policy design
- Smart city strategies and data governance frameworks
- Innovation procurement programmes (PCP / PPI)
- Governance frameworks aligned with NUA and SDGs
- Capacity building for city teams
- Impact evaluation and reporting to multilateral funders
We support private sector actors who want to work with cities, whether entering public markets for the first time or scaling solutions across multiple jurisdictions.
- Market engagement and public procurement navigation
- Vendor-neutral technology assessments for city clients
- Innovation procurement challenge participation support
- Urban impact measurement and reporting
- Strategic positioning for public tenders
- Partnership development with city governments and multilaterals
FAQ
Common questions.
We work primarily with city governments and metropolitan areas, multilateral organisations (IDB, World Bank, UN-Habitat, OECD), federal and state agencies, and private sector actors in urban development. We also support startups and small businesses navigating public procurement processes.
We work in the United States, Mexico and Spain.
We start with a scoping conversation, no charge, no commitment. We want to understand your challenge, your institutional context and what success looks like for your city or organisation. From there we propose a tailored approach, timeline and budget.
We don't send junior consultants with off-the-shelf templates. The principals work directly on every engagement. Our team combines hands-on experience inside city governments and multilaterals with rigorous academic and quantitative methods. We adapt international frameworks to local reality rather than applying them mechanically.
Yes, and we believe the separation between the two is often where urban projects fail. We can support the full cycle from initial diagnostic through policy design, procurement support, pilot management and impact evaluation. We also offer implementation-only engagements to support city teams who already have a strategy but need execution capacity.
These frameworks are built into how we design every engagement. We map interventions to specific SDG targets, build monitoring frameworks with NUA-aligned indicators, and help cities report to UN bodies and multilateral funders. Alignment is not a checkbox, it shapes our analysis and the governance structures we recommend.
Depending on the scope, deliverables include a smart city master plan, a data governance framework, IoT pilot designs, urban dashboards, and vendor-neutral technology assessments. We prioritise interoperability and equity, ensuring that digital infrastructure serves all residents, not only those who are already well-connected.
Innovation procurement allows governments to contract for solutions that do not yet exist at scale, rather than buying off-the-shelf products. In the U.S., this includes instruments such as Other Transaction Authorities (OTA) and Broad Agency Announcements (BAA). It is one of the most effective policy levers for catalysing urban innovation while managing public risk through a pilot-before-scale approach. We guide agencies and cities through the full cycle: challenge definition, market engagement, solicitation design, pilot management and evaluation.
Ready to start?
Let's build a better city.
No commitment. We start with a scoping conversation, understanding your challenge before proposing anything.
