Singapore is ranked second in the Cities of Opportunity Index, second only to London. This makes Singapore the highest-ranked Asian city in the report by PriceWaterHouseCoopers, which looks at the economic and social strengths of a city.

This is not surprising. The city-state is regularly ranked highly in these reports, clinching the third position in the latest Global Financial Centres Index.

However, the PwC report differs in one important way. On top of the usual economic measures, the Cities of Opportunity Index also ranks cities according to quality of life measures such as liveability, security, infrastructure and sustainability, as well as intellectual capital and innovation indicators.

In short, cities are ranked according to both their economic and social strengths as well as their capacity for innovation.

This emphasis on both the economic and social drivers of a city’s success is timely, given that the challenges that cities face today are no longer restricted to economic growth or development. Rather, emerging policy issues and problems — from terrorism to the ongoing Zika outbreak and the prevalence of transboundary haze — have a tendency to impinge upon both the environmental and social liveability of a city.

While the Singapore government has employed tried-and-tested methods to address these issues — such as destroying mosquito breeding grounds — there is merit in encouraging new ways of approaching these and other emerging policy challenges.

As a first step, policymakers have looked towards technological innovations, be they for financial regulation, healthcare monitoring or transport management.

However, technology alone may not be enough. There is also a need to reframe the ways in which problems are perceived and approached.

This may require innovation of a different sort: Cultural innovation. This requires paradigmatic shifts in the ways that people perceive and understand societal issues and problems, giving rise to possible new ways of approaching these problems.

While technological innovations can provide the tools for managing and addressing policy issues, such shifts in socio-cultural mindsets can result in policymakers and citizens taking a completely new approach to understanding emerging problems.

For instance, the Danish municipality of Frederica has sought to introduce greater innovation in its policy and administrative processes, by reframing policymakers’ focus from solutions to outcomes.

For instance, instead of sending caregivers to the elderly every day to provide them with “support socks”, officials embed these elderly within more comprehensive rehabilitation programmes. While helping the elderly put on these support socks on a daily basis was a solution to their immediate discomfort, rehabilitation programmes address more long-term issues of physical well-being.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia has taken a new approach towards addressing the spread of terrorist ideologies, by treating returning jihadists with art therapy. More than 3,000 detainees have taken part in the programme since its inception in 2008 and to date, 80 per cent of those who have gone through the programme have been successfully rehabilitated.

In both cases, there was a reframing of a policy problem and a recentring of the policy solution around the individual and his or her experiences of the problem. This can often give rise to new ways of thinking about and approaching a policy issue.

This role of culture and innovation in driving policy processes is most evident in London, which outranks Singapore in measures of cultural attractions, entrepreneurial environment and innovativeness.

In his first keynote speech, which was delivered earlier this month, British Culture and Digital Minister Matthew Hancock stated that “cultural rebirth and economic revival go hand in hand”.

While the minister was alluding to the economic potential of the cultural sector, more attention is now being paid to the possibilities of innovation within government, particularly by British research institutions such as Nesta.

Nesta is an innovation charity that partners public and private institutions to create new ideas for policy and businesses.

Yet unlike technological innovation, developing cultural innovation requires more time and effort.

As a first step, Singapore may consider establishing innovation-focused research institutions, whose output may not be immediately measureable.

A possible model for this is the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton University, which conducts “curiosity-driven basic research with no view to its immediate utility or the expectation of meeting predetermined goals”.

Notable members of this institute include the physicists Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer as well as cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz. Paradoxically, the institute’s lack of predetermined goals or expectations served to spark off innovation.

At a broader level, there is a need to encourage greater interest in the humanities and fine arts, despite and perhaps precisely because of, the perceived lack of immediate tangible gains from studying these subjects.

While they may not directly address “practical” issues such as the economy or technology, these subjects are crucial for encouraging curiosity among students and providing them with exposure to different cultural worldviews.

This can be achieved at many levels, from placing a greater emphasis on humanities and fine arts in schools to providing more spaces for artistic creation and intellectual discourse within the city.

In order to retain its edge as a financial centre and global city, Singapore needs to look beyond traditional economic means and measures of success.

Focusing on innovation, both technological and cultural, may provide the way forward.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Woo Jun Jie is an Assistant Professor in the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme of Nanyang Technological University and a Rajawali Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.