Regional funding policies that drives smart city strategies and pilot projects
About this good practice
The low level of digitalisation within the public administration is a challenge for the citizens in our Region. People usually expect to have access to basic digital infrastructure which is fundamental to improve their quality of life. Access to open, usable data and digital public services is a decisive factor in this sense.
The new Regional Program had created the opportunity for the public administration in larger cities to fund Smart City Initiatives. The role of the intervention logic is to steer digitalisation for the benefit of citizens, companies and research organisation. Eligible proposals are requested to cover one of the SMART components and to be implemented in the form of pilot projects and later to be replicated and adapted to local specificities.
The Smart City Strategy of Timișoara is a good example of a framework that is targeting the policy instrument while engageing all types of actors within the codesign and consultation activities.
Under the Motto “Innovation made accessible to everyone!“ the strategic process managed to mobilise the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, four international experts as peer reviewers, generated a local DESI evaluation and a portfolio of both strategic projects to be implemented by the local administration and open actions to be proposed by the local entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem.
Resources needed
6 months period for the whole process
Funding resources to cover external expertise fee needed to facilitate the process
12 technical experts (companies, universities) that act as stakeholders at the core of the strategy
1 online platform to support public consultation activities
Evidence of success
Over 400 professionals engaged within the consultation process.
84 strategic projects ideas, 24 of them having the potential to be funded by the regional program.
Timisoara City Hall already implemented a full digital interaction process with the citizens and a digital identity platform to be used as login and certification tool.
108 open actions that can be developed by the local entrepreneurial ecosystem that covers several areas: hardware, software, capacity building, innovation projects.
Potential for learning or transfer
There are several technical aspects that can be transferred:
1. The theoretical perspective of smart city that is putting in the centre the citizen needs and secondly the hardware and software part as potential solutions to the problem.
2. The methodological approach and process that emphasized on having a core technical stakeholder team to propose actions and separately a large citizen participation to validate actions and to propose new project ideas.
3. Engagement with the West University of Timisoara that delivered a local DESI survey embedded in the annually Quality of Life Barometer.
Further information
Documents
EN_presentation_all (optimized)_v3 (1).pdf
Website
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.