The Smart City Guidance Package: The Way Forward
A Roadmap for Integrated Planning and Implementation of Smart City projects
European Committee of the Regions, Brussels | 8th May 2018 - Energy efficiency and strategic collaboration with local partners, supported by ICT tools to improve the quality of life of European citizens, having a long-term perspective on the built environment in mind: these are the key elements of the sustainable city of the future identified by the 'Smart City Guidance Package' (SCGP) launched by the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) during the event hosted by the European Committee of the Regions.
The Guide published by EIP-SCC takes its cue from the 17 objectives for 2030 set by the UN on sustainable development and proposes a roadmap in seven steps in order to support stakeholders in the integrated, cross-domain planning and implementation of innovation projects, synergies and strategies for the smart city.
In the opening session of the event, the First Vice President of the Committee of the Regions Markku Markkula pointed out the crucial importance of the topic and the necessity to fully support initiatives which promote knowledge sharing and experiences exchange among relevant actors involved in smart city projects implementation, as the SCGP does. “Around two-thirds of all the activities related to climate and sustainable development goals are implemented at the local and regional level. Which means that cities, not only considered as authorities but also in their collaborations with local stakeholders, play a crucial role in the achievement of urban development and climate change goals” argued Markkula. “When we look at 2050, which is the long-term planning period for urban development goals, it is important to notice that nearly 80% of people will be living in cities. This explains why sustainable development policies and implementation need to be done by co-organising activities and collaboration with partners inside and outside of the city in order to support and mentor other cities and to become global activities”.
In the same vein, Haitze Siemers Head of Unit C2 of DG Energy, argued that “the work on smart cities in the context of energy transition and energy innovation is crucial because the concentration of people and activities in cities means that almost all the technologies needed for the energy transition must be used in cities in a far more interconnected way compared to other areas.”
Bjarne Foss, vice-rector of Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), emphasised that “NTNU wants to bridge the gap between research and innovation, and share its knowledge for a better world. This guide contributes to that by listing best practices”.
In addition, Pirita Lindholm, Director of ERRIN, stressed how this work can help to develop a coherent approach and enable multi-level governance: “A better link to the regional level can strengthen the structural funds used at regional level, and a systemic approach can help to make decarbonisation programmes from local to EU level work more coherently”.
By presenting the results of the work led by the Integrated Planning, Policy and Regulations Action Cluster of the EIP-SCC, “the Smart City Guidance Package aims at providing public authorities of cities and communities, as well as non-governmental actors, with the necessary support for planning and managing smart city projects” outlined Judith Borsboom-van Beurden, NTNU and main author of the publication “The SCGP offers inspiration and guides city administrations and urban stakeholders by bundling experiences and best practices of cities working on ambitious smart city strategies and projects. It provides insight into obstacles frequently met during implementation and explores what it takes to scale up and replicate. Its final aim is to support building a community around development, implementation and replication of smart city plans and projects, to capture the collective intelligence that has been built up in recent years. In this way, it helps to prepare the next generation of smart city projects and to involve new cities and urban stakeholders within and outside the EIP-SCC”.
"The effectiveness of the seven steps outlined in the roadmap has already been successfully tested in five European cities (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Sofia, Vaasa, Brno and Parma), according to the working methodology of the European Innovation Partnership: the active involvement of the different stakeholders in the development of smart cities, from institutions and cities including banks, industries, SMEs and citizens," said Simona Costa, coordinator of the European Partnership for Innovation (born in 2012 on the initiative of the European Commission). "We are particularly proud to observe that so many European cities have contributed to the initiative, such as San Sebastian, Florence, Rotterdam, Munich, Vienna, Gothenburg, Milan, and we hope many others will join soon”.
Bernard Gindroz, representing CEN/CENELEC/etsi and eea, highlighted how the roadmap for integrated planning and implementation is fully aligned with ISO standards in this field, which are explicitly mentioned for every step, and how standardisation can support smart and sustainable development of cities. Christoph Gollner, FFG and JPI Urban Europe, sketched how this work benefitted from 17 JPI-Urban Europe funded projects while its holistic approach supports the recently started SET plan 3.2 initiative to create 100 Positive Energy districts.
A pdf of the Smart City Guidance Package will be downloadable very soon at: https://eu-smartcities.eu/clusters/8/activity
See here the press release by CORDIS.
Simona Costa – leader Action Cluster IPPR
Judith Borsboom – leader initiative “From planning to implementation” in Action Cluster IPPR
