Does wealth buy happiness? The consensus of academic research is that it helps, although other factors play a more important role. In particular, the key to happiness is the freedom to manage one’s life, alongside physical health. That is especially true for women, many of whom juggle family obligations, work requirements and personal needs.
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Health
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
If one of the keys to happiness is the ability to manage one’s life, alongside managing one’s physical health, then surely personalised apps can help with this process. Moreover, the choice of apps to support women’s health and well-being should be as wide in scope and as varied as are women’s activities, interests and health concerns. In fact, though, this is not the case: Apps aimed at women tend to focus narrowly on monitoring fertility and menstrual cycles. Alexandra Wyke, founder of PatientView, and Tony Newbold, consultant to PatientView, explain why app development seems to be falling short.
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Health
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
Health was confirmed as one of the big challenges facing the global economy during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos earlier this year. Healthcare will be at the heart of what the WEF calls the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
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Health
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
The socioeconomic burden of stroke looks set to become increasingly heavy on high-income as well as on low- and middle-income countries in the decades ahead. The prevalence of stroke is likely to continue to rise, leading to further costs, including direct costs (such as healthcare) and indirect costs (such as lost productivity due to absenteeism from the workplace or presenteeism).
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
We are in the midst of shift in the global conversation about how we approach health—expanding the focus beyond treatment and surviving to a broader discussion about thriving and well-being. Investing in women’s gender equality is at the center of this.
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Health
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
When it comes to defining well-being, where a woman stands on the issue can depend on where she sits; specifically, where she sits geographically. Our recent survey, conducted on behalf of Merck Consumer Health, and presented in the recently released study Women’s health and well-being: evolving definitions and practices, finds that definitions of well-being can vary a great deal based on geography and level of economic development.
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Health
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
What are the challenges ahead for our health services? This infographic will explore how demographic trends, namely an ageing population as well as broad developments in health (eg obesity) will impact the UK healthcare services in the future.
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Health
Value-based healthcare in Sweden: Reaching the next level
The need to get better value from healthcare investment has never been more important as ageing populations and increasing numbers of people with multiple chronic conditions force governments to make limited financial resources go further.
These pressures, along with a greater focus on patient-centred care, have raised the profile of VBHC, especially in European healthcare systems. Sweden, with its highly comprehensive and egalitarian healthcare system, has been a leader in implementing VBHC from the beginning, a fact that was underscored in a 2016 global assessment of VBHC published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This paper looks at the ways in which Sweden has implemented VBHC, the areas in which it has faced obstacles and the lessons that it can teach other countries and health systems looking to improve the value of their own healthcare investments.
Breast cancer patients and survivors in the Asia-Pacific workforce
With more older women also working, how will the rising trend of breast cancer survivorship manifest in workplace policies, practices and culture? What challenges do breast cancer survivors face when trying to reintegrate into the workforce, or to continue working during treatment? How can governments, companies and society at large play a constructive role?
This series of reports looks at the situation for breast cancer survivors in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. It finds that while progress has been made, more needs to be done, particularly in South Korea, where public stigma around cancer remains high.
Cardiovascular diseases levy a substantial financial toll on individuals, their households and the public finances. These include the costs of hospital treatment, long-term disease management and recurring incidence of heart attacks and stroke. They also include the costs of functional impairment and knock-on costs as families may lose breadwinners or have to withdraw other family members from the workforce to care for a CVD patient. Governments also lose tax revenue due to early retirement and mortality, and can be forced to reallocate public finances from other budgets to maintain an accessible healthcare system in the face of rising costs.
As such, there is a need for more awareness of the ways in which people should actively work to reduce their CVD risk. There is also a need for more primary and secondary preventative support from health agencies, policymakers and nongovernmental groups.
To inform the decisions and strategies of these stakeholders, The Economist Intelligence Unit and EIU Healthcare, its healthcare subsidiary, have conducted a study of the prevalence and costs of the top four modifiable risk factors that contribute to CVDs across the Asian markets of China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
Duncan Sim, Senior Policy and Projects Officer at ResPublica, explores the impact UK devolution will have on the public sector at a time when local authorities are faced with increasing government austerity.
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Infrastructure & Cities
Safe Cities Index 2019
Cities across the globe are growing in size and in terms of how connected they are. Which cities are best at keeping their citizens safe and how do they do it? An updated version of the Safe Cities Index 2017, the 2019 index covers 60 cities across the globe and defines how to measure security in a rapidly urbanising world.
Visit the Safe Cities hub for more interactive content >>
Five-star cities: Asia’s best cities for work and recreation
The 2019 bleisure barometer: Asia’s best cities for work and recreation evaluates the bleisure potential of various cities in Asia-Pacific, based on a survey of global business travellers. It reveals that while Asia’s top bleisure destinations provide the right balance of business activity, high-quality infrastructure and top-flight leisure experiences, many less obvious choices stand out for different reasons, often involving opportunities for cultural exchange.
The key findings are:
Tokyo is Asia’s best bleisure destination, ranking first out of 26 cities in the region. The Japanese capital is joined by Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong and Melbourne as a “five-star” bleisure city, as determined by a quantitative barometer constructed for this programme, based on survey responses. Raw scores and number of stars may not correlate perfectly, as the former is an absolute measure and the latter a relative one (see appendix I for the full methodology of barometer and star scoring).
Less-affluent cities comprise most of the one-star destinations, with notable exceptions. Business travel may prove arduous in the emerging metropolises of South and South-east Asia, but greater GDP is hardly the only predictor of a high bleisure score.
New Delhi and Hanoi tie for second (alongside Beijing and Hong Kong) in the category measuring opportunities for cultural experiences, providing them a leg up over cities with stronger infrastructure and a bigger international business scene.
Shanghai and Beijing, often criticised for their poor urban environments, rank highly on business aspects such as quality of international links and level of digital connectivity, helping them best more ostensibly liveable cities, including Auckland, Brisbane, Seoul, Taipei and Wellington, in the overall ranking.
Wealthy Adelaide falls in the one-star category, dragged down by low scores for quality of food and beverage and opportunity for cultural experiences.
Ease of transportation is the top urban factor in a successful business trip. Other key aspects include street safety and quality of business venues, according to our survey. Regional differences emerge in these findings, with Asian executives prioritising transportation, while Europeans are less concerned about safety than those hailing from elsewhere.
Dining out and enjoying local heritage are the chief ways busy business travellers unwind. These two factors rank well ahead of the third-place finisher, visiting an art museum or gallery. Regional nuances crop up here too: Asian executives are less likely to frequent the local drinking scene and more inclined to visit an amusement park.
The report, including full scoring and star bracket methodology, as well as an infographic and video, can be found at: https://fivestarcities.economist.com/
Flexible cities: The future of Australian infrastructure
As this report finds, cities need smarter and more flexible infrastructure to address these challenges— infrastructure that can make better use of existing space and resources, and that can adapt in accordance with uncertain, fast-moving future realities.
The idea of ‘flexible’ or future-proof cities is becoming more important. Imagine a roadway that works for today’s vehicles as well as tomorrow’s autonomous cars, an energy system that can provide reliable power despite spikes in usage (such as those that may come from greater adoption of electric cars), pylons that are mindful of overhead drones, a building that transforms depending on needs of its inhabitants, or an autonomous rail system that can double its capacity simply through changes to its operating algorithms.
Delivering infrastructure that is more responsive and flexible to future needs requires technological innovation as much as it does new approaches to planning, financing and procurement.
In this report, The EIU investigates the challenges facing cities and urban infrastructure in the near future, and the global trends and innovations in infrastructure that will be crucial in response. With an eye to international best practice, it focuses on the challenges and opportunities pertinent to Australia. Here, major cities are facing significant population growth forecasts that call into question their ability to continuously provide a high quality of life for their citizens. Challenges pertain to both meeting infrastructure need, and in delivering solutions, through effective planning, financing and collaboration, in time and on budget.
The key findings of the research include:
Australia is experiencing a number of growing pains. Population growth in cities is a universal trend—urban population is expected to rise by two-thirds by 2050 globally—but it is particularly acute in Australia, where cities must meet double or greater user demand without conflicting with the global targets set by the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030. Such growth challenges the capacity and sustainability of cities’ infrastructure and the networks that connect them. Planners must also reckon with an ageing population, deteriorating infrastructure, adverse environmental change and evolving working patterns, altering the dynamics of how people operate in and navigate cities. A failure to respond to these challenges could result in declining economic productivity and threats to the quality of life for which Australian cities are renowned.
To meet future demands, infrastructure builders across the globe are considering how they can expand the capacity of existing infrastructure and bolster the flexibility of new works. Updated networks like roads, railways and pipelines often need to accommodate twice their original usage demand without changing their physical footprint. The effective adoption of digital technology will be key to this transformation, such as updating metro systems with driverless trains and automatic controls, informed by large amounts of real-time data, to allow a more efficient use of capacity. Water and energy supply systems must also prove reliable in the face of natural disasters, shifts in market prices (such as oil or gas price shocks) or changes to supply sources (backups for solar generation, for example).
New technological techniques and applications can help builders work more quickly, safely and cost-effectively. The design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure projects are increasingly driven by digital technologies, unlocking cost and time savings in building roads, railways and entire city centres. The cost and energy required to build with the highest safety margins could be reduced by remote monitoring through embedded sensors. Efficient, low-impact construction techniques will be important to reduce the disruption that construction and repairs have on metropolitan areas, too.
Stakeholders are increasingly reliant on data to plan, build and optimise projects. Data generated by citizens and connected infrastructure are increasingly critical in delivering and operating smarter cities. Governments and infrastructure providers increasingly benefit from adding this data to their modelling and scenario planning. Open data can also allow citizens and third parties to solve problems or invent new applications that benefit all, from crowdsourcing potholes or reporting crime, to building new navigation apps. Australia’s state and federal governments, citizens, and commercial partners are still grappling with data ownership issues, but all are working to address the challenges.
Mature financing and procurement practices help Australia attract international investment. Attractive markets encourage international competition for infrastructure procurement. Indeed, many of today’s projects are contracted to international players who bring advanced, ambitious proposals to government. And as demand for more advanced, flexible projects rises, players are increasingly presenting envelope-pushing approaches to win bids.
Collaboration between governments, universities and commercial players is increasing, sparking innovation. Universities are playing a larger role in the advancement and application of infrastructure technology by partnering with private companies and government. New forms of collaboration are also more apparent among federal, state and local governments, and between governments and the private sector, potentially easing the problems posed by the historically disjointed nature of decision-making and long-term planning on major infrastructure.
Australia has a strong record of robust infrastructure investment. Its leaders, institutions and businesses have identified the urgency and importance of responsible and smart infrastructure initiatives. As a result, Australia is well placed to wrestle with the challenges it faces, and, as it navigates infrastructure challenges earlier and with greater urgency than some other countries, could be a model for how other countries—in the OECD and in Asia-Pacific—can build smarter, more flexible, next-generation infrastructure in their cities.
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