STARDUST PROJECT - Holistic and Integrated Urban Model for Smart Cities
From October 10 to 11, Fundación Cener-Ciemat together with the city of Pamplona hosted the kick off meeting of the STARDUST project. In this lighthouse project the cities of Pamplona (Spain), Tampere (Finland), and Trento (Italy) will collaborate with industrial partners, academia and research centres to deploy intelligent integration measures, validate technical solutions and innovative business models to deliver blueprints for replication throughout Europe and abroad.
STARDUST is a project funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 smart cities and communities lighthouse programme. This is a highly interdisciplinary project made possible by 29 partners from 8 countries, all of whom will be working together to transform carbon supplied cities into smart, highly efficient, intelligent and citizen oriented cities using technical green solutions and innovative business models coupled with a strong replication strategy. Activities will be first demonstrated in Pamplona (Spain), Tampere (Finland), and Trento (Italy) and will be re-applied in the following cities, namely, Derry (UK), Kozani (Greece), and Litomerice (Czech Republic). The project started officially with its kick-off meeting in Pamplona on October 10 and October 11, led by Fundación Cener-Ciemat.
The STARDUST project aims to transform present day cities to smarter cities through a holistic replication model. It will be combining expertise of the different consortium partners on smart buildings, energy efficiency, ICT, and e-mobility, coupled with innovation and social engagement coming from the locals. By doing so, it will raise awareness between the citizens of Pamplona, Tampere and Trento on the possibility of using their cities as “innovation islands” or urban incubators of technological, social, regulatory and market solutions, for other interested cities around the world.
Technological solutions will be first planned and carried out in the three demonstrator cities. This will be done in parallel with raising awareness and fostering knowledge transfer between the cities themselves through active citizen engagement. Innovative business models and financial schemes will be later defined within these cities. All these results will be shared and transferred from Lighthouse to “follower” cities and cascaded down across other cities and communities through the “JOIN STARDUST” program across Europe and the globe.
The kick off meeting in Pamplona stardted with presentations coming from the different demonstrator sites in the lighthouse and the follower cities, with a focus on the technological solutions and innovative business solutions which will be implemented across the different cities. It ended with a discussion on the project’s impact assessment, monitoring approach and communication strategy. The meeting was also attended by the STARDUST project officers, representatives of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA).