0000000000304183

AUTHOR

Jesse Marsh

Urban Smartness: Perspectives Arising in the Periphéria Project

The paper discusses the concept of “urban smartness” starting from the early results of the Peripheria Project. Peripheria is a 30-month pilot B action funded by the European Commission under the CIP ICT PSP Programme and it aims at deploying convergent Future Internet platforms and services for the promotion of sustainable lifestyles in and across emergent networks of “smart” peripheral cities in Europe. Peripheria develops the Living Lab premise of shifting technology R&D out of the laboratory and into the real world in a systemic blend of technological with social innovation. It defines five archetypical “Arenas”—specific urban settings or innovation playgrounds, with defined social feat…

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Co-creating Urban Development: A Living Lab for Community Regeneration in the Second District of Palermo

The characterisation of urban ‘smartness’ emerges as a product of social mobilisation, which marks the pathway towards collective technology adoption and policy innovation. This paper highlights the didactic and critical aspects that relate to the use of participatory solutions – namely the electronic Town Meeting and others, such as weblogs and the “Planning for Real” scheme – which start within the dimension of social animation and serious gaming and are only later oriented to urban planning. The Palermo pilot of the PARTERRE ICT-PSP project, based on the Territorial Living Lab approach, documents one possible transition from the stage of a free relationship with scenarios and visions, to…

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Multiple Theories of Change for innovation governance

The Theory of Change approach aims to clarify the underlying logic of an intervention by first identifying the problem addressed and the desired outcome, and then backwards mapping the actions taken and the expected results and outcomes. In so doing, it aims to simplify the expression of intermediate goals and indicators and provide a common reference for the participants and stakeholders of the intervention itself. As such, it is similar to corporate ‘mission statements’ in that it aims to provide a single, unifying description of the what, why and how of an intervention. By framing the approach in terms of the ‘change’ required as a means of addressing a problem, Theory of Change is essen…

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