General findings, cross-cutting all modules
1. ‘Smart’ as a concept. No single or unitary meaning can be applied to the concept of 'smart'. Certain elements can be singled out, such as pervasive digitalisation, empowerment of users, making of new services and a general orientation towards problem-solving and design. Yet, we may ask whether the primary role of the concept is strategic and feeding into political agendas, rather than technical. There is a need to clarify the concept, especially when applied for projects aimed at some societal intervention and improvement.
2. Inclusion/exclusion. There should be more sustained attention to individuals, groups and communities left out of smart development projects, or are at risk from being left out. Certain groups are labelled as 'laggards', or as 'late adopters', or (sometimes) ignored altogether, but many times these groups have different needs and interests form early adapters.
3. Role and quality of data. There is a need for critical scholarship on the many roles and uses made for data (kin various forms), and for ways of communicating such knowledge to policy makers. In several of our cases we see that even quite raw and inconclusive data are used by actors for strategic purposes.
4. Conflations of citizens' roles in smart projects. There is a strong tendency for smart technologies and projects to be promoted as user-centric. Yet, in practice there is a parallel tendency to construct citizens as rather passive agents.
5. Interdisciplinarity. Whereas interdisciplinarity is highlighted as necessary for the implementation of smart projects and technologies as socially responsive, in practice such collaborations often do not live up to expectations. Special difficulties arise as social science scholars or lawyers are expected to collaborate with engineers and innovators. It is frequently argued that SSH (social sciences and humanities) scholars are too critical, and rather stay outside of processes than engage with them. On the other hand, SSH scholars and lawyers may also feel that their methods and unique approaches require some critical distance from the activities of engineers and innovators.
The CANDID project was a success insofar as it carried out an orchestrated process, in which different aspects and parts of the research process would flow into and inform research in other parts of the project. We especially highlight the following:
• Ever-closer and intensifying entanglements of (big) data, sensing infrastructures and bureaucracy, and the public role of data – deploying concepts of regimes and networks
• Intensifying entanglements of law, regulation and smart technologies, ‘techno-regulation’ – law interacting with risk management and design
• New and more nuanced conceptualisations of the concept of ‘user’, partially extending on, partially criticising, major recent works in this field
• A discourse analytical and rhetorical analysis of concepts of smartness, with obvious relevance for related fields such as IoT, Fourth Revolution, Big Data, and so on
• Engagements with various strands of recent (STS) scholarship, dealing with infrastructure, design, public reasoning, markets and economics, networked ways of knowing and innovating, futures, visions and imaginaries, public engagements, responsibility, and more.
