He is a member of the UK Government's Smart Cities Forum; a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce; a member of the Academy of Urbanism; and a contributor to UBM's Future Cities community, who included him in their list of the "Top 20 leaders in urbanization", Government in the Lab, and the Sustainable Cities Collective. Rick is heavily involved in IBM's project inSunderland to deliver a City Cloud; and in Birmingham is a member of the Smart City Commission, a Director of Innovation Birmingham and the chair of the Digital Working Group for Birmingham Science City.