With increasing urbanisation come challenges such as overburdened infrastructures, enhanced energy consumption, or air pollution - an endless list of challenges that digital technologies can help overcome. We at DIGTCOM strive to enrich our understanding of how development and deployment of new technologies in urban as well as in rural settings can contribute for creating sustainable societies. Our research revolves around the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 13 Climate Action.
Creating smart and sustainable cities and communities is an important step to fight climate change and build a better future - but more knowledge is still needed to achieve this.
RESEARCH AREAS OUR TOPICS OF INTEREST
SMART & SUSTAINABLE CITIES & COMMUNITIES
Half of world population lives in cities and the United Nations estimates that this number will increase to two out of three people within the next 30 years. The global trend of increasing urbanisation causes societal challenges like pollution, traffic density and sufficient energy supply. Digital technologies are important to solve these challenges, and therefore we strive to enrich our understanding of how the development and deployment of new technologies in urban and rural settings can contribute for creating sustainable societies.
As our name implies, smart cities and communities is one of the focal points of our research: Our origins are projects such as SCORE, OrganiCity, or SynchroniCity - using open data-driven solutions, IoT and AI to bring citizens, businesses and city authorities together for tackling the urban challenges of our time and improving overall living conditions.
Stemming from a rising concern for urban sustainability, we stepped more and more into the field of green cities and communities - which is highly interconnected with the smart development of cities and communities. Projects such as OMEGA-X, UrbanTestbeds.JR, and EDIH allow us to contribute and participate with our human-centred lens in this movement.
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES & THE GREEN TRANSITION
Even though DIGTCOM inherits expertise and experience in creative and lifestyle sectors, we have just entered the territory: We see them as a source of inspiration, as contributors and as drivers of the overall sustainable change and development in our society.
In that sense, we drive projects such as EIT Culture & Creativity as well as initiatives in digital fashion and sustainable fabrics - striving for cross-sectoral collaborations.
INTERNET OF THINGS
IoT technologies already play an important role in our everyday life and will be even more significant in the future. The question is how this future will look like: On one hand, IoT has the potential to bring huge opportunities. On the other hand, it carries several risks and challenges.
In our project NGIoT, we are creating the roadmap for a Next Generation IoT, focusing on data, ethics and trust. As being an essential part of other projects as well - SCORE, OrganiCity, or SynchroniCity - we gained experience and knowledge in IoT technologies. We want to build a common technical ground for scalability, and to prevent vendor lock-in in cities and communities.
You are a researcher or student interested in working with us? We are always on the lookout for new talent.
Living labs, and thus urban experimentation, are an important and integral part of our research within the field of smart cities and communities. In our dictionary a living lab is a testbed for digital solutions: In the form of small ecosystems they can facilitate collaboration between multiple stakeholders, for example academia, municipalities, industry and citizens. For us, co-creation between different stakeholders is vital for creating smart and sustainable cities and communities.
Already found in original projects, living labs and urban experimentation are methods we have relied on since the foundation of DIGTCOM: OrganiCity is a successful example of the value of co-creation with citizens, with the resulting OrganiCity Playbook as a guide on how to launch experimentation as a service in cities. With UrbanTestbeds.JR we proudly present one of our youngest projects having experimentation and citizen involvement as its focal point, and benefiting from international collaboration.
PUBLICATIONS & STANDARDS OUTPUT OF OUR RESEARCH
PUBLICATIONS
In addition to ongoing projects and initiatives across Europe, we at DIGTCOM do not forget our academic roots: Regular publications summarise experiences and knowledge resulting from our work, making them accessible to others.
RESEARCH STANDARDS
Cities are eager to be open and agile, but the city departments often lack knowledge about open standards for data exchange, especially when they procure isolated services. There is already a sheer number of standards available to support cities and communities and this makes standards an interesting, yet complicated field to research and navigate.
The Open & Agile Smart Cities network (OASC), is founded by DIGTCOM together with Connected Places Catapult, Business Tampere and Imec. OASC is chaired by Martin Brynskov and it is an example of building a city network based on common and open standards. OASC is a neutral partner that supports cities by means of a minimal approach that facilitates and structures data exchange within and between cities as well as third parties. The approach of OASC Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms, in short MIMs, enables a smart city market for data and services that benefits both cities and suppliers.
