Information Day on the appeal on cities and smart communities
@ Mediaterre
What is a smart city? This is a city using ICT for a better use of resources and lower emissions, but it's also a city that promotes smart urban transportation systems, modernized water supplies and waste elimination, as well as efficient lighting and heating systems in buildings.
The transformation of major European centers into smart cities and communities is one the EU priorities. This is why the European Commission launched in July 2012, the European Innovation Partnership for smart cities and communities gathering European cities, major industraisl and representatives of civil society to make the urban areas of Europe smarter. That's also the reason why the European Commission launched 2 calls for proposals on smart cities and communities within the Horizon2020 program. Interested stakeholders met at the begining of February for the information and networking day to learn more about this call for propsals and to meet potential partners for this project.
One of the event speakers, Alexandros Kotronaros, from the Direction of Energy, noted that necessary informations were available under the title "Smart Cities and Communities solutions integrating energy, transport, ICT sectors through lighthouse (large scale demonstration - first of the kind) projects" (SCC-01-2015). He underlined the importance of three key concepts:
- integration of innovative technologies or innovative methods;
- imitation, other cities should be able to replicate the solutions;
- and balance, it is important to preserve balance between the size of the sector, that of the cities, transportation, etc.
Mr. Kotronaros pointed out three critical areas, such as:
- areas with low or zero energy intensity (which should go beyond national requirements),
- sustainable urban mobility
- and integrated infrastructures (such as lighting, industrial sites, etc.)
These three aspects should be linked by ICT in each city, ICT are the junction point and as Mr. Kotronaros shared, creating ICT platform is essential.
The consortia of the flagship projects for this call for proposal are, among others: industries, urban planning authorities, the research community and SMEs who could obtain the assistance of the cities.
Submitted proposals are examined by a group of external experts who will evaluate and comment independantly. They will then meet with colleagues from the 3 sectors of the European Commission. Last year, 19 projects were submitted and three obtained support. The GROWSMARTER, TRIANGULUM and REMOURBAN projects are currently on the launching phase.
The deadline to submit your proposal for SCC-01-2015 and the other call for proposal for smart cities titled "Development of system standards for smart cities and communities solutions" (SCC-03-2015) is May 5, 2015.
Source: CORDIS
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