The Conversation article written by Nathalie Crutzen, University of Liege
In November 2024, the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona crowned Shenzhen with the title of Smart City of the Year 2024. This accolade puts the concept of the smart city back at the center of the debate.
Over the past 15 years, this concept has gained in popularity in the literature and in practice. Although the term is not new - it was coined in the 2000s by technology groups such as IBM - there is no universally accepted definition. For the purposes of this article, we define a smart city as "an ecosystem of stakeholders, engaged in a process of sustainable transition (integrating economic, environmental and social issues), on a given territory (urban or not), using digital technologies as a means, a facilitator to carry out related actions".
Smart city initiatives can be characterized by projects in various fields: mobility, energy and smart lighting, water and waste management, e-government or even tourism.
Many questions are being asked about their management, governance and impact. How are smart, sustainable city strategies developed and linked to existing local priorities? How do these dynamics play out in practice? What impact do they have on entrepreneurship and urban innovation? Studies I have recently carried out suggest possible answers.
A question of local priorities
Today, local governments have to make choices about which priorities to include in their smart city agendas. According to literature, smart city initiatives should ideally be based on pre-identified local issues, as well as pre-existing local priorities - sustainable mobility, water and energy management. To give an example linked to current events, territories such as Valencia or Venice need to start from their specific challenges, particularly in terms of water management - flooding or drought - to build their strategy.
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Collaboration, the cornerstone of smart cities
Collaboration between different players at local level is crucial to the success of sustainable, smart city dynamics. The "quadruple helix" model emphasizes the importance of collaboration between four spheres: public authorities, business, academia and science, and civil society. A study highlights three factors that facilitate collaboration between the various players in sustainable and smart city ecosystems:
- More intense collaboration between the various stakeholders is demonstrated in territories with a clear strategy. Having a common direction seems to help overcome traditional silos or divides - in terms of logics of action, interests or time horizons, for example - and de facto encourage collaboration.
- The presence of an orchestrator dedicated to sustainable and smart transition facilitates coordination between multiple stakeholders. They help to streamline communication and break down sectoral silos to organize cross-functional initiatives. This role is particularly useful in large urban ecosystems such as metropolises, where the complexity of interactions between players calls for more structured governance. Smart city project managers are being recruited in these cities.
- Collaboration is also influenced by the specific characteristics and priorities of each region. For example, environment-related projects - such as energy or water management - are particularly effective in stimulating collaboration in Wallonia. Those focusing on mobility and citizen participation are more common in Flanders.
Nevertheless, recent research shows that in many cases, collaboration fails, and that success factors vary according to the local context.
Entrepreneurship booster
Implementing a sustainable, smart city dynamic in a given territory can also have a stimulating effect on entrepreneurship - particularly digital and ecological entrepreneurship.
Research shows a positive correlation between these initiatives and the rate of new business creation. The more an area is involved in a smart city initiative, the higher the rate of new business start-ups.
Among Belgian smart city initiatives, our researchers have noted that when they follow a bottom-up logic, the rate of entrepreneurship is all the higher. The active participation of all local stakeholders therefore seems to be beneficial for the development of entrepreneurship within smart and sustainable cities. In the case of large cities, the link between smart city and digital entrepreneurship is given extra impetus. It corresponds to the idea that (large) cities tend to position themselves as digital hubs in the context of smart cities.
Preventing extreme weather events
A concept supported by the European Commission, which on December 12 launched the European consortium for digital innovation CitiVerse. Bringing together fourteen member states, with a budget of 80 million euros, it aims to make Europe a world leader in emerging technologies.
CitiVerse will focus on AI-based solutions for optimizing traffic, energy and water management. Digital tools will be used in particular to identify extreme events, such as the recent flooding in the Valencia region or the cyclone in Mayotte.
In each case, the starting point will be the local situation, and the emphasis will be on collaboration between all local players.
This article was written in collaboration with Dr Arnaud Stiepen, an expert in the popularization of science.
Nathalie Crutzen, Professor, founder and academic director of the Smart City Institute (SCI) at HEC Liège, Université de Liège
This article is republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
