STARDUST is one of the twelve ‘Horizon 2020 Smart Cities and Communities’ projects which met in Lisbon on the 12th of April 2018 to sign a manifesto of cooperation. This manifesto is an agreement between cities to significantly change the smart city market place.
The document declares the commitment of the projects to identify opportunities to enhance their impact through collaboration, to act on achieving the synergies that will spread best practices and bring Europe closer to realising its climate commitments, as well as to develop tools and standards that can be exploited by cities outside the lighthouse projects, and by future projects.
The signing took place together with a day’s worth of workshops where the 76 cities across Europe, all of which are the direct beneficiaries of these projects, discussed their progress in enhancing energy efficiency, and collaborating with the private sector to create business models that will perpetuate and multiply the effects of the EU’s investment. The combined investment from the European Commission on the Lighthouse projects is worth €263.84 million. The workshops were organised in the framework of the 2018 Portugal Smart Cities Summit.
At the event, STARDUST was represented by CENER, Fondazione iCons and Officinae Verdi. “This shared effort may amplify greatly the impact of each individual projects”, says Sergio Diaz de Garayo Balsategui from CENER, who joined the meeting on behalf of STARDUST. “The fact that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts was the basis idea of the parallel workshops held in the areas: Packaging in building retrofit, Packaging on smart lighting and Branding experience. The approach of packaging cities’ needs looks like a good chance to make the change cheaper and more efficient”, concludes Sergio.
Thanks to the European funded Lighthouse projects, cities have been transformed into laboratories where innovative ideas are tested. By cross-referencing results and conclusions regarding the approach and execution of smart measures, cities boost each other’s potential for success. Demonstrating and highlighting of new, tested practices will encourage replication in other cities, and will allow synergies between projects to emerge.
Besides STARDUST, the other projects signatories of the manifesto are Remourban, Triangulum, Growsmarter, SmartEnCity, Replicate, Smarter Together, SharingCities, Ruggedised, MySmartLife, IRIS and MAtchUp.
