Project: SmarterLabs - Improving Anticipation and Social Inclusion in Living Labs for Smart City Governance

The SmarterLabs project aims to develop a Smart City Living Lab approach to effectively deal with two major risks to successful, widespread implementation of smart transport technologies. These two risks concern (1) unforeseen barriers to large-scale change in socio-technical systems, and (2) exclusion of social groups not matching the required ‘smart citizen’ profile. This novel, ‘smarter’ approach will be developed, tested and refined by retrospective analysis of urban mobility governance and by action research in Living Lab experiments in the cities of Bellinzona, Brussels, Graz and Maastricht. The main feature of this approach is to anticipate the two major risks by ex-ante diagnosis, and address these explicitly in the design of the Living Lab experiments to enhance the successful uptake of smart urban mobility innovations. The SmarterLabs consortium is well-positioned for this project by including universities with complementary knowledge, cities committed to implementation of smart mobility concepts, companies developing such innovations, and organizations representing stakeholder interests. All research and city partners have experience with multi-actor Living Lab and participatory approaches, and concrete implementation projects serving as experiments are already identified. The SmarterLabs’ Advisory and Dissemination Board will organize ‘testing workshops’ in Helsinki, Santander and Istanbul to ensure broad European applicability of the novel approach.

Acronym SmarterLabs (Reference Number: 5618082)
Project Topic Topic 4. Smart governance and smart citizens
Network ENSCC
Call ERA-NET Cofund Smart Cities and Communities (ENSCC) - Joint Call for Proposals

Project partner

Number Name Role Country
6056750 Bral vzw - Brusselse Raad voor het Leefmilieu Partner Belgium
6149887 Città di Bellinzona Partner Switzerland
City of Maastricht Partner Netherlands
Grontmij Partner Netherlands
Maastricht Bereikbaar Partner Netherlands
5618082 Maastricht University - ICIS Coordinator Netherlands
6101399 Pro Velo Ticino Partner Switzerland
5622025 Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern CH) Partner Switzerland
6081852 Stadt Graz / Stadtbaudirektion Partner Austria
5620929 Universität Graz - RCE Graz-Styria Partner Austria
5622249 Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BE - Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research Partner Belgium