SMART CITIES GUIDANCE PACKAGE ON TOUR AND…IT WORKS! Santa Cruz de Tenerife city ecosystem pioneer is hosting the first test-bed and applying the methodology. © Simona Costa (Santa Cruz, Tenerife 23 November 2018). The Santa Cruz city Councilor Juan Jose Martinez Diaz gave a warm welcome to Judith Borsboom-van Beurden and Simona Costa Action cluster chairs on Integrated Planning in the Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities for the first workshop testing the Smart Cities Guidance package and announcing to the audience 50 new electric recharging points, 7 new electric buses and a bioclimatic building inaugurated one week ago! The city has presented for the first time to the 40 participants coming from the city administration, urban planners, engineers, public utilities companies, Large Small and Medium Enterprises the activity planed as an IRIS lighthouse fellow city. IRIS is an H2020 project funded by the European Union in 2017 involving 3 lighthouse cities Gothenburg, Utrecht, Nice and the fellow cities Santa Cruz, Vaasa, Focsani, Alexandropulos. “The city of Santa Cruz has the ambition to become the 20-30 Capital de l’Atlantico,” outlined Humberto Gutierrez Garcia, city of Santa Cruz and IRIS project coordinator, “committed to set up and implement a Smart cities replication plan in the next four years building the Santa Cruz Smart cities ecosystem and learning from some lighthouse innovative solutions in sustainable mobility and positive energy districts.” The Smart City Guidance Package for Integrated Planning and Management seeks to provide the necessary support for planning and managing smart city projects by offering inspiration derived from the input of commitments within the Integrated Planning & Policy Regulations Action Cluster, additional interviews conducted with key players, and successful Framework Programme 7 and Horizon 2020 projects. “An early involvement of all governmental and non-governmental actors is fundamental for maximising the output and the guidance package can provide ideas how to do this,” pointed out Judith Borsboom-van Beurden, Senior Researcher at NTNU University, Initiative leader and coordinator for the guidance contents and publication. The Smart City Guidance Package aims not only at making information accessible to cities and communities that want to implement smart city plans and projects, but also at highlighting key success factors and avoiding common pitfalls, thus enabling the dissemination and replication of best practices and lessons learned. The ultimate objective is to contribute to shaping a better policy and decision-making process by involving and informing both the political and the operational levels working on Smart City projects, next to citizens, local businesses, and other urban stakeholders, such as energy and transport operators. The follow up debate after the validation exercise has shown that the methodology and the holistic approach can be applied to put in place the Santa Cruz ecosystem and contribute to co-design their replication and sustainable plan. “Our EIP Smart cities Action cluster team composed also by Bernard Guignoz, Chairman of ISO TC 268 Sustainable Cities and Communities – Cen/Cenelec, Margit Noll, Chairman of the Management Board JPI Urban Europe, Georg Houben on behalf of DG Energy European Commission together with our 50 active members involved also in other H2020 and lighthouse projects are ready to boost Smart cities scale-up. The Smart cities guidance package will be officially presented next March 2019 during a high level political event hosted by European Parliament,” announced Simona Costa, Action Cluster chair. Stay tuned on our next test-bed workshops!!! Sofia here we come!!! Countries Belgium
