Innovation Day 2025: Innovation Means Investing in People
On 24 July 2025, the sixth edition of the Municipality of Porto’s Innovation Day took place at the Porto Innovation Hub. The event brought together senior leaders from the City Council and municipal companies in a programme dedicated to reflection, capacity building and knowledge sharing on the role of innovation in public management.
The 2025 theme
With the motto “Innovating means investing in people”, this edition highlighted the importance of human capital in organisational transformation. Innovation was presented not merely as the application of technology, but as a continuous process that depends on skills, motivation and team engagement.
Leadership was one of the key topics: “Today, any employee can knock on the leader’s door and speak openly,” emphasised Isabel Paiva de Sousa, one of the speakers in the first panel. She further reinforced that “those who are in the process are the ones who know exactly what can be improved, and often it is the employee, not the leader.”
Programme and key contents
The day’s programme combined plenary sessions, strategic debates and hands-on group work. The opening session, led by Filipe Araújo, Vice-President of Porto City Council, highlighted the importance of placing people at the centre of innovation and of creating conditions to develop internal skills.
During the morning, internal projects and initiatives were presented, illustrating how investment in employee training contributes to the modernisation of services. Nuno Albuquerque, Head of Innovation and Projects at the MDFR (Municipal Directorate of Financial Resources), highlighted the need for change in traditionally rigid sectors: “The traditional role is very closed, but there is a need to transform and modernise services.” The link between innovation and productivity was also highlighted: “Increased productivity and process simplification were clear achievements.”
Methodologies and results
Among the topics addressed, three key pillars stood out:
- Employee participation, encouraging everyone to contribute ideas and improvement proposals;
Structuring the innovation process, using methodologies such as the 3e9 framework (Investigate, Integrate, Interact), which allows solutions to be tested and validated on an ongoing basis; - Achieved results, including the delivery of more than a dozen projects over the past three years, increased productivity and simplified processes.
“There is no theory without practice. This process starts from real challenges, moves through experimentation and reaches integration,” stated Pedro Pedroso, Municipal Director of Financial Resources.
Looking to the future
In the closing session, Paulo Calçada emphasised the importance of cross-cutting follow-up and continuous communication: “Innovation does not happen alone; it requires methodology, collaboration and continuous communication”. Concluding that “the most important thing is the achievements, big or small, they all count.”
Six editions of progress
Created in 2020, Innovation Day has become a consolidated internal forum for strategic alignment among municipal leadership. Each edition has followed the evolution of priorities: from data and digital transition to organisational culture and, in 2025, to the role of people as the driving force of change.
Innovation Day is part of a broader strategy to promote a collaborative culture and continuous improvement within the municipal environment. The 2025 edition reinforced that innovation is not achieved in isolation: it depends on leadership, structured methodologies and the active participation of everyone.
By placing people at the centre, the Municipality of Porto reaffirmed that any transformation process — digital, organisational or sustainable — can only succeed with motivated and engaged teams.