To improve Mediterranean City innovation capacity, the Esmartcity project enhanced city innovation ecosystems by applying the Smart City concept towards infrastructure deployment and digitalization, leading to better citizen services, more efficient use of resources, and less environmental impact. Digitalization is an on-going socio-technical transition including new technologies and how they become embedded in society.
In order to reap digital innovation contributions in making urban environments more livable, cities must act proactively in using open infrastructure and open data to offer new services, breaking the silos between application domains, and enhancing entrepreneurship and innovation.
ESMARTCITY project has enrolled into 9 pilot testing interventions in the themes of smart buildings and smart street lighting. It has tested working methods, with key elements of bottom-up and participatory approaches, that have resulted in transferable and replicable policy recommendations on innovation policy change. These recommendations are targeted to local and regional policy stakeholders on the basis of a win-win Smart City paradigm opportunity for local communities, with positive impacts ranging from CO2 emission decrease to new jobs creation, opening of new and green businesses, and improving local population quality of life.