STARDUST’s objective has been to introduce low carbon, highly efficient, intelligent, and citizen oriented cities. It has thus developed green technical solutions and innovative business models to address the urban challenges identified by the cities involved.

These challenges have got to do with the environment, society, mobility, energy, economy and the cities’ visibility. To name a few examples are urban poverty, poor waste management, incremental air pollution and traffic congestion, lack of jobs, high energy cost and poor international recognition.

According to the challenges pointed out, selected focus areas were selected by STARDUST. These have included:

•  “Innovation islands”, or urban incubators that demonstrate scalable, cost-effective and bankable urban scale solutions
• Smart ecosystems that makes use of the new economic paradigm in European cities that is based heavily on eco-innovation, market competitiveness, low carbon usage, and promotion of a circular economy
• Open city information platforms, an ICT platform that allows both lighthouse and follower cities to engage actively with one another and to address effectively their issues with the technical partners
• Lighthouse cities’ solutions, which have been adapted to the follower cities