Smart Cities and Communities: new study suggests examples of best practice

An EU-funded study has been published analysing Smart Cities and Communities solutions. Smart Cities and Communities are defined by their intelligent use of integrated energy, transport and IT technologies to reduce their environmental impact and offer citizens better lives. The study shows that if an existing project is replicated on a larger scale or in a different location, no single factor, but only several factors in combination, will affect the new project's potential for success. When implementing solutions it is always very important to bring together political institutions, investors, industry players and citizens.

The study examines 300 initiatives undertaken in Smart Cities and Communities, around 200 in Europe and 100 in the rest of the world. It selects 80 examples of best practice: 10 of these are presented in detail as case studies. It also makes a number of general recommendations to be followed when creating new Smart Cities and Communities. These include bringing together private and public investors and entrepreneurs, involving citizens at all stages of the development of Smart Cities and Communities, and testing approaches before deploying them on a large scale. In addition, it looks at the increasing number of Smart Cities and Communities in China, and suggests measures that would allow businesses from the EU to collaborate with Chinese companies to provide innovative solutions for SCC while protecting their intellectual property rights.

In 2012, the European Commission launched the European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities. This partnership supports the development of technologies to be deployed in urban areas in order to create Smart Cities and Communities, and the new study contributes to its knowledge base.

Study on Smart Cities and Communities

Executive summary of the studySearch for available translations of the preceding link•••

European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities