Centre for Urban Policy Studies and Public Participation GIS research group
The University of ManchesterJenni Viitanen and Richard Kingston
Societal challenges: energy efficiency, climate change and smart cities:
We have developed online map-based (GIS) systems in the field of climate change
adaptation, housing, smart engagement, and energy efficiency
What Horizon 2020 theme(s) fits your living lab?
…track record of research:• SMARTiP EU Competitiveness and Innovation
(CIP) Future Internet enabled services in Smart Cities
• Green and Blue Space Adaptation for Urban Areas and Eco Towns (GRaBS) is a €3m project funded by the INTERREG IVC programme
• Energy Innovation Fund and UK transmission industry collaboration “TellUs”
What is your living lab all about?
• The toolkit transformed energy distribution network and asset data into geographically representative digital maps allowing the user to identify capacity constraints on the network; propose solutions to capacity limitations; add and remove site characteristics and contextual data to the map; analyse impacts and costs of planned additions
Our pitch: two strands of research
The smart city is a data-driven city– Smart City Energy Map (technology)– The governance of data driven cities (social science)– Ref: Viitanen and Kingston (forthcoming) Smart Cities
and green growth – outsourcing democratic and environmental resilience to the global technology sector, Environment and Planning A
Smart City Energy Map• Aim: to undertake a feasibility study and produce a technical
platform using live data combining energy with other relevant city data– High level objective 'ICT for energy efficient neighbourhoods' (Horizon 2020) – Holistic view of neighbourhood and community energy use assessed alongside
other spatially referenced data, e.g. built environment, socio-economic attributes and the weather
– Step forward in moving from individual 'smart meter' displays or building level information towards a more holistic model of energy management at the neighbourhood scale
– Starts with a feasibility study to work with cities (or LLs) to assess and transform available data, explore the policy dimensions and drivers for the energy map and its functionality
– The outputs are 1) feasibility and concept design (year 1), 2) technical platform development and testing (year 2 and 3)
Governance
• Aim: to create a framework of understanding how the material infrastructures of ‘data driven cities’ are reorganising governance – Create an analytical framework of how and with what
capabilities do different actors in the data driven city co-create outcomes
– Conduct city case studies of 3 or 4 (tbc) cities – Analyse the results of the case studies to produce a European
framework for understanding the actual and potential of governance models in a data-driven cities
– Make recommendations for European research and policy (Horizon 2020)
• We are looking to develop and lead both bids (but would join as partners if there is consortium building already in either area)
• Potential European partners, ideal research interests and expertise in: – Technical development in web-enabled data
services/ energy/ urban data platforms/ sustainability (Smart City Energy Map)
– Urban governance and data/ public participation/ policy process (Data-driven cities)
Potential partners
Thank you!
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