As Initiative Leader in the Smart Cities Marketplace Action Cluster Integrated Planning, Policy and Regulations, Judith Borsboom has led the work on compiling the Smart City Guidance Package, collecting the experiences and best practices of nearly 100 European cities, businesses and research, many of them Horizon2020-funded smart city lighthouse projects as REMOURBAN, TRIANGULUM, SMARTER TOGETHER and RUGGEDISED, but also adjoining networks such as JPI Urban Europe, Global Covenant of Mayors, European Energy Award, and city networks as ICLEI and Eurocities. The team clustered common obstacles and best practices for making cities smarter and more sustainable in a logical way and made them available in a low-threshold, easily accessible document which helps city administrations to develop a proper strategy for integrated planning and implementation of smart city projects, aligned with ISO standards and in an inclusive way, while taking replication into account from the beginning. January 2021, a summary was published entailing more information on securing finance.
Locality executes this study, in collaboration with Cleantech Scandinavia, for the Dutch Enterprise Agency, Dutch Embassy to Sweden, Innovation Quarter and City of Rotterdam. It assesses the possibilities for scaling up and replicating smart and cleantech solutions in validated in Dutch and Swedish testbeds cities and for market development for companies. Together with Cleantech Scandinavia, it develops a roadmap for the exchange of knowledge and learning between testbeds, living labs and system demonstrators in Sweden and the Netherlands, which will lead to a better uptake of smart, sustainable solutions and local economic growth.
Led by VITO, Locality is responsible for the community and capacity building through Action Clusters, where businesses, city administrations, research and NGOs work together on a voluntary, non-paid basis, on the smart decarbonization of cities. The Action Clusters and Initiatives exchange knowledge, build capacity, and address barriers for implementation of climate-neutral, smart solutions, and help to shape future projects. Locality is responsible for the support and coordination of Action Cluster work and the promotion of synergies between them, together with experts from VITO, Think-E, RdA, Steinbeis2i, ICLEI and DNV-GL.
Locality contributed to the Foresight Study led by AIT, which supported the Mission Board on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, which co-designs the content of the new Horizon Europe programme. The Foresight Study has investigated specific topics around the feasibility of smart and climate-neutral cities and reflected on how city administrations can be engaged and mobilised. Here, Locality provided in-depth knowledge on delineation of smart city concepts, different contexts and realities of smart city projects across Europe, feasibility and viability of proposed smart and climate-neutral urban solutions, possible pathways and common hurdles in planning and implementation such as siloed governments and collaboration with external parties.
