Lessons learnt and policy recommendations

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One of the lessons learnt from the projects regarding smart cities is the need for a more holistic approach. This suggests that approaching smart cities merely as a matter of technology is not sufficient. In order to respond to citizens’ needs for sustainable and healthier living environments, as much emphasis should be placed on social and ecological matters as on the technological ones in the development of smart cities. A more holistic framework brings these aspects together and sees them as interdependent.

Smart city approaches can be used to encourage a sharper focus on citizen well-being, not just through the application of technologies that improve urban life, but also by improving urban planning processes through knowledge-driven initiatives, innovative governance, and potentially more inclusive decision-making. The projects adopt a variety of approaches, including Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS), digital participation tools, and citizen science practices such as environmental co-monitoring or mapping (where citizens participate in, for example, the monitoring of air quality or mapping of places of local significance). Not all these approaches encourage co-production, even though they potentially encourage citizen participation in the production of scientific knowledge and expand our repertoire of knowledge by incorporating local and experiential knowledge that might otherwise have been overlooked in conventional scientific practices or urban planning procedures.

Another key lesson is the importance of the context where practical or research activities take place. Any challenges the researchers might face will be context-dependent, ranging from more fundamental challenges over which they do not have control (such as major budget cuts) to seemingly more minor ones that nevertheless pose significant challenges in the field (such as changing contact persons for recruiting citizens or changes in municipal personnel during the research period).16 This implies that there is no failproof method; researchers will need to adapt to the challenges they face in different contexts. The key to more satisfactory stakeholder engagement seems to be the identification of common goals that would provide enough motivation for both the citizens engaged in the research and the local governments that seek to use research findings. All methods, tools, and frameworks need to be contextualised by practitioners and adapted to existing planning processes and social contexts. This requires clear communication objectives, timeframes, and clarification of the extent to which the participating public can influence planning decisions.

It is also important to target different social groups more specifically through a more tailored combination of participatory approaches, not as one homogenous group of “citizens”. Identifying different target groups and their specific characteristics, such as age, socio-economic status, or background, and designing participatory tools tailored specifically for different groups is likely to enhance participation. Such an approach would require not only using different digital tools, but also complementing them with other methods.