H2020-Smart Cities and Communities-REPLICATE lighthouse project February 2016 – January 2021

Overview

An ongoing renaissance is taking place in European (smart) cities and regions. The key approach of REPLICATE EU lighthouse project (#ReplicateEU), funded by the European Commission, H2020 framework, is in recognising the inherent complexity of urban challenges and the distinctiveness of European cities and regions. REPLICATE project advocates innovative approaches to citizenship, with the aim of involving citizens as stakeholders at all stages in each experimental socio-technical pilot in the metropolitan areas of three lighthouse (San Sebastián – Spain, Florence – Italy, and Bristol – UK) and three follower/fellow cities (Essen – Germany, Lausanne – Switzerland, and Nilüfer – Turkey).

The main objective of REPLICATE project is the development and validation of a sustainable city business model to enhance the transition process to a smart city in the areas of the energy efficiency, sustainable mobility and ICT/Infrastructure in three lighthouse cities, in order to accelerate the deployment of innovative technologies in the three follower cities.

In order to achieve this policy goal, the University of Oxford, through its Future of Cities programme at COMPAS, acting as the workpackage leader of ‘Replication’, is leading the replication strategy implementing the following tasks through stakeholders’ workshops:

(i) assessing the critical factors in each follower/fellow city;

(ii) conducting a survey and fieldwork research to measure the stakeholders’ interdependencies;

(iii) implementing the ‘City-to-City-Learning’ Programme (#City2CityLearning) as a knowledge exchange intensive programme among the stakeholders in the lighthouse and follower/fellow cities during the whole year 2019; and ultimately,

(iv) establishing the replication plans for follower/fellow cities.

For further information:

https://replicate-project.eu/city2citylearning/

Topics

CitiesCitizenshipCivil SocietyPolicies

Regions

Europe

Theory

Presumably, the future belongs to the European cities and regions that genuinely embrace city-to-city learning processes and attempt to fulfil the promise of smart cities (Coletta, Evans, Heaphy, and Kitchin, 2018; Calzada and Cobo, 2015; Calzada, 2018). However, new social, institutional, and also political transitions agreed upon multistakeholders policy schemes are required for European cities and regions to face emerging techno-political challenges while avoiding the algorithmic control of big corporations. Thus, the rationale behind the approach implemented by the University of Oxford, Future of Cities Programme, is based on the core idea that a ‘city-to-city-learning’ programme is required as the most effective replication strategy among cities, far from the assumption of the city as a solely predictable and rational machinery.

Methods

The work of the Replication WP leader in Replicate EU project covers the following areas of Knowledge Exchange and impact-related activities:

1. To conduct multistakeholders’ workshops in six cities
2. To assess deeply the critical factors to implement disruptive technology and compare smart city case-studies
3. To investigate multistakeholders’ configurations in each city
4. To coordinate and elaborate the ‘City-to-City-Learning’ programme
5. To give advice in the elaboration of the Replication plans
6. To maximise and disseminate the impact of the WP.

Findings

So far in the project, this are the three preliminary findings:

1. A large majority of stakeholders in the analysed cities embrace exploring alternative business models by considering the bottom-up approach
2. Despite the previous point, each smart sector (energy, mobility, and ICT) depicts clearly a distinct picture.
3. To sum up, the widespread perception of stakeholders about the potential replicability differs significantly from city to city.

Outputs

Academic publications:

Journal Articles

1. Calzada, I. (2018), (Smart) Citizens from Data Providers to Decision-Makers? The Case Study of Barcelona. Sustainability 10(9): 3252. DOI: 10.3390/su10093252. Special Issue: Big Data Research for Social Sciences and Social Impact.
2. Calzada, I. (2018), Local Entrepreneurship Through a Multistakeholders’ Tourism Living Lab in the Post-Violence/Peripheral Era in the Basque Country. Regional Science Policy & Practice 1-16. In the Special Issue ‘Local Entrepreneurship and tourism: policies and practices in peripheral areas’. DOI: 10.1111/rsp3.12130.
3. Calzada, I. (2018), Deciphering Smart City Citizenship: The Techno-Politics of Data and Urban Co-operative Platforms. RIEV, Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos.
4. Calzada, I. (2017), Problematizing and Politicizing Smart City-Regions: Is Devolution Smart?, Territorio 83: 37-47. In the Special Issue ‘From Smart City to Smart Region. Meanings, Governance, Policies and Projects’. (ISSN: 1825-8689). DOI: 10.3280/TR2017-083005.
5. Calzada, I. & Cowie, P. (2017), Beyond Data-Driven Smart City-Regions? Rethinking Stakeholder-Helixes Strategies. Regions 308(4): 25-28. (ISSN: 1367-3882). DOI: 10.1080/13673882.2017.11958675.
6. Calzada, I. (2017), The Techno-Politics of Data and Smart Devolution in City-Regions: Comparing Glasgow, Bristol, Barcelona, and Bilbao. Systems Journal 5(1): 1-18. Special Issue ‘Smart Cities and Regions as Systems of Innovation’ (ISSN 2079-8954). DOI: 10.3390/systems5010018
7. Calzada, I. (2016), (Un)Plugging Smart Cities with Urban Transformations: Towards Multistakeholder City-Regional Complex Urbanity? URBS, Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales Journal 6(2): 25-45. (ISSN: 2014-2714). Retrieved from: http://www2.ual.es/urbs/index.php/urbs/article/view/calzada.
8. Calzada, I. & Cobo, C. (2015), Unplugging: Deconstructing the Smart City. Journal of Urban Technology 22(1): 23-43. DOI: 10.1080/10630732.2014.971535.
9. Calzada, I. (2013), Critical Social Innovation in the Smart City era for a City-Regional European Horizon 2020. Journal of Public Policies & Territory P3T 2(6): 1-20.

Books

1. Satyam, A. & Calzada, I. (2017), The Smart City Transformations. The Revolution of the 21st Century. New Delhi, New York, Sydney and London: Bloomsbury Academic and Professional Publishing. ISBN-10: 9386349043 & ISBN-13: 978-9386349040.
2. Calzada, I. (2019), Smart City Citizenship, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Elsevier. [Forthcoming]

Book chapters

1. Calzada, I. (2018) From Smart Cities to Experimental Cities? In Vincenzo Mario Bruno Giorgino and Zachary David Walsh (eds), Co-Designing Economies in Transition: Radical Approaches in Dialogue with Contemplative Social Sciences. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 191-217. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-66592-4_11.

Reports

1. Calzada, I. (2016), (Un)Plugging Smart Cities Transformations and Strategies in Europe, Harvard University Whitepaper contribution given on 13th October at 2016 Strategic Innovation Summit: Smart Cities Europe held by the Dublin City Council and the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University in Dublin, Maynooth University. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.34524.80000.