Joint investment programme for European Smart Cities agrees bold targets, both in terms of allocated funding and number of engaged stakeholders. The EIP-SCC marketplace will engage 300 cities and invest 1 billion Euro.
Financing is a prerequisite to speed up adoption of smart city solutions. The other essencial elements are cooperation within multi-stakeholder ecosystem and business models which have to be changed to facilitate adoption of smart city innovations. One of the workgroup within EIP-SCC Sustainable Action Cluster discussed challenges in regulatory and procurement domain. Partially, those identified gaps between city and industry cooperation are being addressed by Standards Development Organisations in "Management Frameworks" which are aiming at reducing pre-procurement and decision making time, as well as encouraging cities to become active participants in co-creating standards.
The European Commision is aware that the EC calls need to be more stringent about compliance with open standards. This approach will prevent "vendor lock-in", create equal opportunity for SMEs and enable broader adoption of innovations. Also, business friendly environment must be created to allow agile experimentation and achieving "quick wins". Smart City services providers have to work collaboratively in supporting an overall project. As professor Gerg Clars emphasizes: "The market must shift to a city needs-led and demand-driven model. This must involve greater collaboration between cities and industry partners".
The event was a great opportunity to meet Smart City stakeholders and explore possible collaborations. Due to interrelations and common goals, The Smart Parking workgroup had the workshop with the representatives of the Traffic Management and Demand-driven First&Last mile solutions workgroups. Over the next month precised action plan has to be agreed on WHY the problem a group is aiming to solve is important, WHAT the group wants to achieve, and HOW.
The money is out there. Now we need to think outside the box to plan this pan-European project and execute it.