Smart Cities and Communities

What is it?

The European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities combines Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), energy management and transport management to come up with innovative solutions to the major environmental, societal and health challenges facing European cities today.  

With the aim of coming up with scalable and transferable solutions to contribute to the EU’s 20/20/20 climate action goals, it looks to reduce high energy consumption, green-house-gas emissions, bad air quality and congestion of roads.

The Partnership aims to overcome bottlenecks impeding the changeover to smart cities, to co-fund demonstration projects and to help coordinate existing city initiatives and projects, by pooling its resources together.

It ultimately looks to establish strategic partnerships between industry and European cities to develop the urban systems and infrastructures of tomorrow.

The Partnership follows the Smart Cities and Communities Initiative which was launched in 2011. This initiative initially only covered energy and had a budget of € 81 Million, which grew to € 365 Million and extended to include the transport and ICT sector with the launch of the Partnership in July 2012.

 

How does it work?

The European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities consists of the High Level Group (supported by its Sherpa Group) and theSmart Cities Stakeholder Platform.

In the High Level Group there are high level representatives from industry, research and cities. Each High Level member elects an associate from their company/organisation to support them in their work. The Sherpa Group is formed from these associates and a set of additional, not High Level Group associated members.

Together they are responsible for the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP), which helps define how concepts promoting Smart Cities are put into practice. It also looks at how the European Commission can support these measures during the next Research Framework Programme – Horizon 2020.

The Smart Cities Stakeholder Platform is the collaborative, networking and knowledge sharing tool of Smart Cities and Communities. It collects and analyses input from all stakeholders in order to:

  • give advice to the High Level Group to feed into the Strategic Implementation Plan
  • provide detailed feedback to stakeholders who can use it to create their own activities and projects

Ultimately the High Level Group and the Smart Cities Stakeholder Platform work together to encourage and support Smart Cities concepts to be embraced on a wide scale.

Lighthouse Projects

This describes the funding of large scale projects, which come from policy recommendations in the Strategic Implementation Plan and can be funded through a number of different channels, including Horizon 2020 and structural funds. They are specifically designed to raise awareness of the Partnership and give it increased visibility. Impact and replicability are key features.

For more info consult the FAQ H2020 Lighthouse projectspdf(30 kB) Choose translations of the previous link or go to the H2020 participant portal.

Other Projects and Activities

These are triggered and guided by the platform’s feedback and put in place by stakeholders and members of the Partnership. They can be funded by private, local, regional or structural funds coming from cities, regions, banks, etc and make up a significant and crucial contribution in working towards the smart urban systems of tomorrow.

The Strategic Implementation Plan and the Platform set the boundary conditions for both types of projects by triggering regulatory issues, standards, business models and public procurement schemes.

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