Civic Atlas
Transforming civic knowledge
What becomes visible when we look at Birmingham's civic system as a whole?
Explore what the Civic Atlas discovers. See connections, patterns and questions that emerge when Birmingham‘s diverse civic activities are considered in relation to one another. Learn more ↓
Why does understanding the wider context matter?
Whether you're designing a service, making policy, allocating resources or looking for potential partners, decisions are better informed when you can see what is already happening around them.
But relevant information is often scattered across different sources — and the things that matter aren't always obvious until you look across them.
The Civic Atlas brings relevant evidence together.
The Atlas gathers evidence about organisations, activities, needs, places and other aspects of civic life from different sources.
By looking across this evidence it can reveal things that aren't obvious from any single source.
The Civic Atlas looks for things worth noticing.
For example, three very different types of organisation may consider pet care – but for quite different reasons, and without necessarily knowing about one another.
Looking across the evidence, the Atlas makes that Discovery: pet care appears in several otherwise separate areas of civic activity.
That Discovery might prompt a question such as:
"Could this recurring connection suggest that pet care should always be considered when designing any kind of wellbeing intervention?"
Where can a Discovery take you?
A Discovery isn't an answer or a recommendation…
It's a starting point.
It might help you design a better service, inform a policy decision, find potential partners, share resources, or ask questions you hadn't thought of.
The Atlas can't make those decisions for you – It can help you see where there might be something worth investigating.