Evolving Intelligent Environments: Smart Ecosystems and Transformative Innovations in the 21st Century provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the convergence among smart ecosystems, connected intelligence, and transformative innovations, considered the foundations of intelligent environments.

* Smart ecosystems are communities of organisations within and across cities, empowered by smart technologies, digital platforms, and artificial intelligence. They form collaborative environments organising production, service hubs, supply chains, city districts, utility networks, and innovation spaces advancing efficiency and sustainability.
* Connected intelligence is the cornerstone of intelligent environments and a driving force of collaborative problem-solving. Under specific conditions, it emerges within smart ecosystems through the integration of human, collective, and machine intelligence, generating transformative innovations and ecosystem transitions.
* Transformative innovations involve deep, often disruptive, changes to routines and operational performance that go beyond optimisation. Connected intelligence emerging within smart ecosystems, along with enabling technologies, data spaces, modelling, and experimental sandboxes, drives the discovery of transformative innovations.

The book explores the current leap forward in intelligent environments, which are redefining models of 21st-century urban and industrial ecosystems. It examines the expansion of platform economies; the transition of industrial sectors into smart-green ecosystems; the evolution of service ecosystems augmented by generative AI; the rise of carbon-neutral smart districts; the creation of cleaner and safer neighbourhoods; the emergence of car-free cities enabled by intermodal and robotic mobility; and the formation of globally connected innovation ecosystems.

Table of Contents

1. Foundations for Intelligent Environments: Smart Ecosystems, Connected Intelligence, Transformative Innovations
1.1. The legacy of Bletchley Park: Problem-solving with connected intelligence
1.2. Smart cities and ecosystems evolving into intelligent environments
1.3. Interdependencies within intelligent environments
1.4. Setting intelligent environments: Challenges and problems
1.5. Theoretical framework: Connected intelligence in smart ecosystems
1.6. The book

Part 1. The Rise of Smart Ecosystems

2. Smart Ecosystems: Systems-of-Systems Reshape Cities and Innovation
2.1. System-of-systems in the smart city paradigm
2.2. Ecosystems in the making of smart cities
2.3. System-of-systems in innovation
2.4. Smart ecosystems, digital and green transitions
2.5. Twenty major smart ecosystems

3. Smart Ecosystems in the Near Future: Foresight and Evolution
3.1. Smart ecosystems: Evolution and futures in the literature
3.2. Navigating foresight exercises
3 3. Envisioning 2050: Perspectives from experts
3.4. The near future of smart ecosystems

Part 2. Transformative Innovations and Transition Models

4. Industry Sectors: Transitioning into Smart Green Ecosystems
4.1. Industrial transformation: The challenge
4.2. Pathways for industrial transformation
4.3. Transforming industry sectors: A generic pathway of transition and growth
4.4. Evidence from case studies in Mediterranean regions
4.5. Connected intelligence and industry smart-green transition

5. Service Ecosystems: Platforms in the Age of Generative AI
5.1. Service ecosystems in transition
5.2. Services over supply chains: The traditional model
5.3. Platform-based service ecosystems: A model of systemic transformation
5.4. Widening of the platform model: The city as a platform
5.5. Evolving service ecosystems: Platforms enhanced by generative AI

6. Residential Areas: Towards Self-Sufficient Net-Zero Energy Districts
6.1. Pathways to carbon neutrality: Between vision and hype
6.2. Carbon neutrality through net-zero energy districts
6.3. Beyond NZEDs: Are self-sufficient NZEDs feasible?
6.4. A model of transition to S-NZEDs: Combining eight systems
6.5. Transition to S-NZEDs: Simulation and thresholds
6.6. Connected intelligence and carbon neutrality

7. Mobility Ecosystems: Transformative Innovations for Car-free Cities
7.1. Urban mobility: Transitioning to car-free cities
7.2. The Mobility as a Service ecosystem
7.3. Augmenting MaaS with connected intelligence
7.4. A model to assess time efficiency in multimodal mobility
7.5. Beating the clock: Simulating x-minute trip durations
7.6. Towards car-free cities: MaaS, connected intelligence, re-design, and NBSs

8. Interconnected Innovation Ecosystems: Combining Capabilities across DIP spaces
8.1. Innovation: A recap of key concepts
8.2. Innovation ecosystems: Baseline typologies
8.3. Interconnected innovation ecosystems: Multi-scalar dynamics
8.4. IIEs: Evidence of transition
8.5. IIEs, connected intelligence, and innovations supply chains: An integrative model

Part 3. Actualising Connected Intelligence

9. Connected Intelligence: A Universal Architecture across Smart Ecosystems
9.1. Smart ecosystems evolving into intelligent environments
9.2. The conditional emergence of connected intelligence
9.3. Connected intelligence in smart ecosystems: Three case studies
9.4. Ecosystems developing connected intelligence: A universal architecture

10. Actualising Connected Intelligence in the Discovery of Innovation
10.1. DIP platforms: Design for engagement, awareness, and externalities
10.2. Datasets alignment
10.3. Agent-based modelling
10.4. Experimentation sandboxes
10.5. Binary coupling interfaces in the discovery of innovation

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The ebook bridges theory and practice, revealing how technology, planning, and environmental design converge, examining key success factors for PEDs through global case studies; technology solutions from dynamic building envelopesand non-isolated DC–DC converters to thermal demand response strategies; integration of nature-based solutions with renewable systems to create livable, resilient, carbon-neutral cities, modelling for PEDs, and other detailed aspects of PEDS. Included are:

Tony Castillo-Calzadilla: Towards Net-Positive Energy Urban Districts: A Pillar of the Energy Transition

Dimitrios Siakas, Kerstin Siakas, and Georgios Lampropoulos: Positive Energy District Success Factors: Learning from Global Challenges and Success Stories

Aristotelis Ntafalias, Panagiotis Papadopoulos, Mark van Wees, Danijela Šijacic, Omar Shafqat, Mari Hukkalainen, Julia Kantorovitch, and Magui Lage: The Benefits of Positive Energy Districts: Introducing Additionality Assessment in Évora,Amsterdam and Espoo

Erfan Shafiee Roudbari, Ramanunni Parakkal Menon, Ivan Kantor, and Ursula Eicker: Toward Positive Energy Districts by Urban–Industrial Energy Exchange

Tohid Hashemi and Hamed Jafari Kaleybar: The Modeling and Simulation of Non-Isolated DC–DC Converters for Optimizing Photovoltaic Systems Applied in Positive Energy Districts

Simon Schneider, Thomas Zelger, Raphael Drexel, Manfred Schindler, Paul Krainer and José Baptista: Declaration-Ready Climate-Neutral PEDs: Budget-Based, Hourly LCA Including Mobility and Flexibility

Anastasia Panori, Nicos Komninos, Dionysis Latinopoulos, Ilektra Papadaki, Elisavet Gkitsa, and Paraskevi Tarani: Blending Nature with Technology: Integrating NBSs with RESs to Foster Carbon-Neutral Cities

Mohammad Almesbah and Julian Wang: Review of Dynamic Building Envelope Systems and Technologies Utilizing Renewable Energy Resources

Martina Capone and Elisa Guelpa: Implementing Optimal Operation of Multi-Energy Districts with Thermal Demand Response

Md. Feroz Ali, Nitai Kumar Sarker, Md. Alamgir Hossain, Md Shafiul Alam,Ashraf Hossain Sanvi, and Syed Ibn Syam Sifat: Techno-Economic Feasibility Study of a 1.5 MW Grid-Connected Solar Power Plant in Bangladesh

Angeliki Kitsopoulou, Dimitris Pallantzas, Evangelos Bellos, and Christos Tzivanidis: Mapping the Potential of Zero-Energy Building in Greece Using Roof Photovoltaics

You can download the book from here:
https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-7258-6373-0

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SmartGreenEcos is a European project that aims to create a Mediterranean smart ecosystem of 100 food industry businesses, fostering collective innovation, digital and green transition, and improved business competitiveness.

Benefits from participating in SmartGreenEcos 
By joining SmartGreenEcos, a company gains access to digital platforms and services for
1. Artificial Intelligence applications to optimise production, reduce energy and raw material costs
2. Learning AI solutions supporting the digital and green transitions
3. Digital procurement, e-commerce, B2B and B2C, and supply chain innovation
4. Collaborative new product development and knowledge exchange
5. Networking and joint innovation opportunities with companies and research organisations from MED countries.

Participation
Participation in SmartGreenEcos is free of charge. Each participating company will receive a package of advanced services in AI-driven production optimisation, AI learning, smart procurement, and product development, customised to its specific needs.
However, only 25 companies from Greece will be selected, based on their commitment to active participation in the ecosystem’s activities (workshops, use of services, procurement, and collaborative innovation).

Why SmartGreenEcos is different
As a model of collaborative innovation, SmartGreenEcos follows a different path from that of startups, which are typically small, high-risk ventures developing niche solutions. Instead, the aim is to mobilise an entire industry of established companies to innovate collectively. The focus is both on innovation at the individual company level, and the transformation of the industry sector as a whole. Through collaboration and the diffusion of smart and green technologies, this model ensures that even smaller firms gain access to shared technological capabilities and innovation resources.

Who can participate 
SmartGreenEcos focuses on the Manufacture of Dairy Products (NACE 10.5). This sector lies at the centre of a broad, interconnected value chain that extends from upstream inputs, to processing, packaging, distribution, and supporting activities. Participating companies may belong to the key segments of the dairy value chain, such as:
Upstream chain (inputs)
– 10.91 Manufacture of prepared animal feeds
Core of the chain (NACE 10.5)
– 10.51 Processing of milk and production of cheese
– 10.52 Manufacture of ice cream
Supporting industries
– 28.93 Manufacture of machinery for the diary industry
– 21.10 Manufacture of basic industrial biotechnological inputs (cultures, enzymes)
– 22.22 Manufacture of plastic packaging for food
– 23.13 Manufacture of hollow glass (bottles)
Trade and markets (downstream)
– 46.33 Wholesale of dairy products
– 47.29 Retail sale of food products in specialised stores

By participating in SmartGreenEcos, a company strengthens its innovation capacity and competitiveness, gains access to advanced digital platforms and AI applications for digital and green transition, becomes part of an international network and MED association of businesses and knowledge organisations, and contributes to collective solutions that benefit the entire industry to which it belongs.

For more information or to express interest: contact@urenio.org

SmartGreenEcos is a project funded by the Interreg NEXT MED

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Smart Green Ecosystems

SmartGreenEcos implements a collaborative innovation model structured around three stages: (1) prioritisation; (2) ecosystem perspective centred on digital platforms; and (3) transformative innovation leading to smart-green transitions, as depicted in the diagram below.

Over 36 months (2025–2028), SmartGreenEcos will implement four interconnected activities:
– Establishing the SME ecosystem to enable collaboration and shared growth.
– Developing collaborative digital platforms to strengthen MED supply chains, enhance cross-border partnerships, and facilitate data and knowledge sharing for digital and green transformation.
– Facilitating SMEs in using these platforms to improve their competitiveness and sustainability.
– Ensuring the ecosystem’s long-term sustainability and scaling up to include all MED countries.

The digital platforms to be developed within the project focus on:
1. AI-based optimisation, benchmarking financial, digital, and green performance to guide improvement action plans.
2. Learning and capacity building for AI smart green business practices.
3. Digital procurement to facilitate inter-company agreements and MED supply chains.
4. Collaborative new product development to drive sector-based open innovation.
Through these platforms, participating SMEs will develop targeted improvement action plans, establish procurement agreements, enhance their capabilities in smart green practices, and co-design new products.

Beyond the project’s duration, SmartGreenEcos will establish an Association of SMEs to promote the MED food industry and develop further platform-based services for AI-driven benchmarking, capacity building, digital procurement, and new product development. Ultimately, SmartGreenEcos will serve as a model for ecosystem development and smart green transition in the MED food industry, paving the way for future replication in other industry sectors.

Partners
RTD Talos Ltd
URENIO Research, Aristotle University
University of Carthage
Investment World for Development and Technology

*
SmartGreenEcos is a project funded by the Interreg NEXT MED

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This URENIO Research Working Paper, authored by Anastasia Panori, presents a comprehensive framework for understanding the intellectual landscape of regional development. It provides valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to navigate this complex and evolving field.

Regional development is an intricate process that involves various components and actors interacting within complex, evolving environments. Despite numerous studies on specific aspects of the field, a comprehensive overview of the intellectual structure has remained underexplored. This fragmentation limits the ability to grasp broader trends and interconnections shaping regional development research. To address this gap, this study utilises a bibliometric analysis to examine the intellectual structure of regional development over the past 25 years.

Drawing from 15,226 source documents extracted from Scopus, the study constructs a document citation network including 15,488 co-citations (edges) among 7,882 source documents (nodes). Citation relationships among these publications are analysed using weighted in-degree calculations in Gephi, while the Louvain modularity algorithm identifies research communities based on shared themes. Additionally, topic modelling techniques in R, utilising word frequency and co-occurrence analysis, uncover dominant thematic areas within the field. Key findings reveal the interconnectedness of various research communities, with a particular emphasis on path dependence and industrial evolution, the role of Higher Education Institutions, regional disparities and inequality, entrepreneurial ecosystems, EU Cohesion Policy, the rise of the city-regions, tourism and globalised regional development.

The paper is available here: URENIO_Working_25_1
or through ZENODO

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Focusing on the railway station district in western Thessaloniki (Greece), this research is situated within the ReGenWest project, part of the EU Cities Mission. The study develops a comprehensive, well-structured framework for integrating NBSs and RESs, drawing on principles of urban planning and energy systems to address the area’s specific spatial and ecological characteristics. Using the diverse typologies of open spaces in the district as a foundation, this research analyses the potential for combining NBSs with RESs, such as green roofs with photovoltaic panels, solar-powered lighting, and solar parking shaders, while assessing the resulting impacts on ecosystem services. The findings reveal consistent benefits for cultural and regulatory services across all interventions, with provisioning and supporting services varying according to the specific solution applied.

The study identifies larger-scale opportunities for integration, including the incorporation of NBSs and RESs into green and blue corridors and metropolitan mobility infrastructures and the development of virtual power plants to enable smart, decentralized energy management. A critical component of the proposed strategy is the implementation of an environmental monitoring system that combines hardware installation, real-time data collection and visualization, and citizen participation.

Aligning NBS–RES integration with Positive Energy Districts is another aspect that is stressed in this paper, as achieving carbon neutrality demands broader systemic transformations. This approach supports iterative, adaptive planning processes that enhance the efficiency and responsiveness of NBS–RES integration in urban regeneration efforts.

The publication is available here.

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Using the Net Zero Action Plan for Thessaloniki as a case study, we examine the efficacy of designing policies at the operational and governance levels. We argue that a complexity-based approach is applicable in this context. As we refine our understanding of the spatial impact of interventions, our certainty regarding the necessary governance level diminishes, and vice versa. We also discuss the potential for realizing the ambitious objectives of the EU Cities Mission through a convolution perspective and the challenges associated with bridging the gap between theoretical concepts and practical implementation.

Pdf: Smart carbon–neutral development: Embracing complexity with multi-level governance and convolution 

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The committee determined the award based on an overall evaluation of the papers’ originality and significance, considering citations and downloads. Six winners were chosen, including three research papers and three review papers. The announcement has been officially released here.

Net-zero energy Districts (NZEDs) are city districts where the annual amount of CO2 emissions released is balanced by emissions removed from the atmosphere. NZEDs constitute a major component in a new generation of smart-green cities that deploy connected intelligence, smart systems, and renewable energy technologies. They promote environmental sustainability, contribute to cleaner environments, and reduce global warming and the threats from climate change.

The paper describes a model to assess the feasibility of the transition of city districts to self-sufficient NZEDs based on locally produced renewable energy suitable for cities. It also aims to identify threshold conditions for a city district to become a self-sufficient NZED using smart city systems, renewable energy, and nature-based solutions. The transition to self-sufficient NZEDs is extremely important as it considerably decentralises and multiplies the efforts for carbon-neutral cities. The methodology combines literature review, model design, model feed with data, and simulations to assess the model’s outcome in various climate, social, technology, and district settings.

The conclusions assess whether the transition to NZEDs with locally produced solar panel energy is feasible and identify thresholds in terms of climate, population density, and solar conversion efficiency. The paper challenges the compatibility of self-sufficient NZEDs with compact city planning principles.

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The book series also publishes original research on the current transformation of cities, metropolitan regions, and rural communities, driven by the twin digital and green transition. Books in these fields may not have the label “smart”, nevertheless, they address the same drivers of 21st-century cities and planning, investigating how different types of intelligence in cities produce innovations and transitions towards a digital and green future.

The following titles have been published up to now.

Untangling Smart Cities: From Utopian Dreams to Innovation Systems for a Technology-Enabled Urban Sustainability helps all key stakeholders understand the complex and often conflicting nature of smart city research, offering valuable insights for designing and implementing strategies to improve the smart city decision-making processes. The book drives the reader to a better theoretical and practical comprehension of smart city development, beginning with a thorough and systematic analysis of the research literature published to date. It addition, it provides an in-depth understanding of the entire smart city knowledge domain, revealing a deeply rooted division in its cognitive-epistemological structure as identified by bibliometric insights.

Digitally Disrupted Space: Proximity and New Development Opportunities for Regions and Cities develops an analytical framework of the key structural elements in relation to the digital space and its impact on existing spatial interactions at a regional and urban level. The book puts forth the argument that the digital space is a new form of space acting complementary to existing spatial structures and creating novel interactions between and/or within them. It explores how digital space enhances connected intelligence by combining knowledge-intensive activities, cooperation between organizational and institutional actors, and smart environments of knowledge creation and diffusion.

Smart City Emergence: Cases from around the World analyzes how smart cities are currently being conceptualized and implemented, examining the theoretical underpinnings and technologies that connect theory with tangible practice achievements. Using numerous cities from different regions around the globe, the book compares how smart cities of different sizes are evolving in different countries and continents. In addition, it examines the challenges cities face as they adopt the smart city concept, separating fact from fiction, with insights from scholars, government officials and vendors currently involved in smart city implementation.

Implementing Data-Driven Strategies in Smart Cities is a guidebook and roadmap for practitioners seeking to operationalize data-driven urban interventions. The book opens by exploring the revolution that big data, data science, and the Internet of Things are making feasible for the city. It explores alternate topologies, typologies, and approaches to operationalize data science in cities, drawn from global examples including top-down, bottom-up, greenfield, brownfield, issue-based, and data-driven. It channels and expands on the classic data science model for data-driven urban interventions – data capture, data quality, cleansing and curation, data analysis, visualization and modelling, and data governance, privacy, and confidentiality. Throughout, illustrative case studies demonstrate successes realized in such diverse cities as Barcelona, Cologne, Manila, Miami, New York, Nancy, Nice, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, Stockholm, and Zurich.

Smart Cities and Artificial Intelligence offers a comprehensive view of how cities are evolving as smart ecosystems through the convergence of technologies incorporating machine learning and neural network capabilities, geospatial intelligence, data analytics and visualization, sensors, and smart connected objects. These recent advances in AI move us closer to developing urban operating systems that simulate human, machine, and environmental patterns from transportation infrastructure to communication networks. Exploring cities as real-time, living, dynamic systems, and providing tools and formats including generative design and living lab models that support cities to become self-regulating, this book provides readers with a conceptual and practical knowledge base to grasp and apply the key principles required in the planning, design, and operations of smart cities.

The Metaverse and Smart Cities: Urban Environments in the Age of Digital Connectivity explores the intersection between the rapidly growing metaverse and the future of cities. The metaverse is a virtual world that is increasingly gaining attention as a new frontier for human interaction and commerce. At the same time, cities are undergoing significant transformation as they face challenges such as population growth, urbanization, and environmental degradation. Urban planners and city administrators will find valuable insights on how the metaverse can be integrated into the planning and development of smart, sustainable, and future cities.

Smart Cities for Technological and Social Innovation establishes a key theoretical framework to understand the implementation and development of smart cities as innovation drivers, in terms of lasting impacts on productivity, livability and sustainability of specific initiatives. This framework is based on empirical analysis of 12 case studies, including pioneer projects from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and more. It explores how successful smart cities initiatives nurture both technological and social innovation using a combination of regulatory governance and private agency.

Management of IoT Open Data Projects in Smart Cities demonstrates a key project management methodology for the implementation of Smart Cities projects: Principles and Regulations for Smart Cities (PaRSC). This methodology adopts a basis in classic Scrum soft management methods with carefully considered expansions. These include design principals for high-level architecture design and recommendations for design at the level of project teams. This approach enables the deployment of rule-based linguistic models for IoT project management, supporting the design of high-level architecture and providing rules for Scrum Smart Cities team.

Shaping Smart for Better Cities powerfully demonstrates the range of theoretical and practical challenges, opportunities and success factors involved in successfully deploying digital technologies in cities, focusing on the importance of recognizing local context and multi-layered urban relationships in designing successful urban interventions. The first section, ‘Rethinking Smart (in) Places’ interrogates the smart city from a theoretical vantage point. The second part, ‘Shaping Smart Places’ examines various case studies critically. Hence the volume offers an intellectual resource that expands on the current literature but also provides a pedagogical resource to universities as well as a reflective opportunity for practitioners.

Humane and Sustainable Smart Cities explores how to develop emergent smart cities that are rooted in humane, innovative and sustainable values (CHIS). The book considers the move from technocratic and idealized smart metropole to humane cities as a product of fundamental demographic changes, the development of a usage-based rather than an ownership economy, the novel implications of digitalization, decentralization and decarbonization, and Internet-enabled changes in public opinion towards democratization and participation. The book’s authors explore seven dimensions and characteristics of humane, sustainable and innovative cities in the developing world: the economy, people, the place, energy and the environment, mobility, social inclusion and governance.

Smart City Governance examines public domain activities and services in the digital age, evaluating all facets of smart city e-governance that fosters a cohesive understanding for the emerging generation of advanced “digital natives.” Exploring the tensions between political science and jurisprudence theories with the principles of societies and their alignment with legal systems, the book examines how governance systems can translate into the digital domain, addressing both the technical and legal dimensions. It offers a model for the technological foundation of governance, discussing existing technological components.

To propose a book, please use this template.

Tan Yigitcanlar
Professor of Urban Studies and Planning
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Nicos Komninos
Professor of Urban Development and Innovation Policy
URENIO Research, Aristotle University, Greece

Mark Deakin
Professor of Built Environment
Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland

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Digitally Disrupted Space: Proximity and New Development Opportunities for Regions and Cities

The book develops an analytical framework of the digital space structural elements and their impact on existing spatial interactions at the urban and regional levels. The book puts forth the argument that digital space is a new form of space acting complementary to existing spatial structures and creating novel interactions between and/or within them. It explores three research questions: (a) What disruptions do digital technologies introduce to the concept of space, specifically in terms of space dynamics, space connectors, and space routines? (b) How does the digital space impact the twin transition? (c) What challenges does the digital space present for regional development, particularly in terms of productivity, resilience, and inclusion?

Panori suggests a holistic approach to the design of urban and regional space that considers the interaction between physical, social, cultural, and technological aspects. She advances an ongoing research agenda of URENIO Research that investigates how digital spaces enhance connected intelligence by combining knowledge-intensive activities, cooperation between organizational and institutional actors, and smart environments of knowledge creation and innovation.

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• Electricity: There will be a widespread installation of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in public spaces and buildings, making Thessaloniki a national pioneer in promoting the replacement of fossil fuels with RES.
• Buildings & Heating: The renovation and upgrading of the building stock will be extensive across all types of buildings, including private (residential and commercial), municipal, and other public buildings. New buildings will adhere to the highest energy efficiency standards, and heating will predominantly use high-efficiency electrical systems. Public facilities will undergo comprehensive upgrades.
• Transport & Logistics: By 2030, the vast majority of trips made by polluting private cars will be replaced by sustainable/”green” modes of transport (private or shared bicycles and micro-mobility vehicles, private or shared electric cars, public transport) within a sustainable multimodal transport system. The urban logistics system will be transformed and optimized within a regulated operating environment, utilizing sustainable means of transport.
• Water & Waste Management: Packaging recycling rates will rapidly increase to meet corresponding European targets. Bio-waste management will be modernized through composting infrastructure, and food waste will be significantly reduced.
• Land Use & Green Infrastructure: An extensive tree planting program will increase the area of the city covered by tree foliage. The use of nature-based solutions will reduce surface and atmospheric temperatures, mitigate heat islands, and enhance noise absorption. Biodiversity protection will be a priority.

The Climate City Contract

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Discover Sustainability is a Springer Nature open-access journal within the Discover Series, publishing research across all fields relevant to sustainability, and with an Impact Factor 2.6 (2002). The journal is indexed in Web of Science’s Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), SCOPUS, and DOAJ.

We invite research papers, case studies, literature reviews, that fall within the scope of the Collection, briefly presented below.

The European Union (EU) has set a highly ambitious objective to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050, following its broader commitment to combat climate change and address environmental sustainability. This objective is embedded in the European Green Deal, which was proposed by the European Commission in 2019, and has since become a cornerstone of EU policy, aligned with innovations for greenhouse gas emissions reduction; sectoral transformation of energy, transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, and buildings; energy transition to a low-carbon system using renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric power, as well as enhancing energy efficiency; Just Transition to mitigate the social and economic impacts on regions and communities that are heavily reliant on fossil fuels or energy-intensive industries; support to 100+ smart climate-neutral cities; strengthening of sustainability in the innovation agenda and Smart Specialisation Strategies; and many other policies and initiatives including monitoring and reporting.

While this objective to become climate-neutral by 2050 represents a bold and comprehensive commitment to climate adaptation, this Collection of Discover Sustainability focuses on strategies, pathways, and smart systems for achieving this objective. It seeks to assess whether the EU initiatives constitute a coherent model towards climate neutrality and to discuss the data, challenges, and methods that demonstrate the EU’s leadership in the global fight against climate change.

We are particularly inviting papers that shed light on the two vital aspects of the European model of innovation for addressing climate change. First, we encourage submissions that assess and analyse novel pathways, policies, and initiatives for climate neutrality in cities and regions within the European Union. Secondly, we invite contributions that delve into a (pan) European model of innovation for climate neutrality, connecting local and regional innovation ecosystems to EU innovation institutions and policy instruments.

Submission guidelines are at
https://link.springer.com/journal/43621/submission-guidelines

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URENIO Research organises, in framework of DAPI, the virtual session “Intelligence Reimagining Innovation Ecosystems”. The session highlights the substantial shifts in urban and regional innovation ecosystems, driven by technologies that underscore different types of intelligence.

Over the past two decades, cities and regions worldwide have channeled investments into creating comprehensive research and innovation ecosystems, composed of R&D labs, research institutes, districts for technology and innovation, startup incubators, co-working spaces, accelerators, and support institutions. Concurrently, digital transformation has given rise to new research and innovation paradigms based on data and networking, digital innovation platforms, smart ecosystems, data-driven innovation, crowdsourced skills and funding, and citizen science initiatives. These facets, intertwined, craft a fabric of interactive spaces of intelligence, technology, talent, and solutions, creating a new landscape of innovation.

We invite papers that analyze the significant transformations occurring in innovation ecosystems of cities and regions, exploring how digital technologies, advances in artificial intelligence, enhanced cognitive abilities, collective wisdom, and machine computational power are amplifying these ecosystems.

Proceedings will be published by Springer and will appear in volumes of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS).

You can submit an abstract of up to 500 words for review to komninos@urenio.org
The deadline for submissions is 20 December 2023.

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