STARDUST serves as smart connector bringing together advanced European cities and citizens of Pamplona, Tampere and Trento - with the follower cities of Cluj-Napoca, Derry and Kozani
The objective of STARDUST is to pave the way towards low carbon, high efficient, intelligent and citizen oriented cities, fully aligned with the Clean Energy for All Europeans strategy, by developing urban solutions and innovative business models, integrating the domains of buildings, mobility and efficient energy through ICT. The aim is to test and validate these solutions, enabling their fast roll out in the market. STARDUST will demonstrate that the smart integration of these actions, together with other accompanying non-technological measures can provide a platform for citizens and community engagement.
The STARDUST cities will be a living lab to design and validate a replicable model of Smart Cities, able to tackle all social, economic and environmental key aspects in an intelligent integrated way, by using novel ICT tools as sewing thread. The main targets are:
• Target 1. To create several “innovation islands” as urban incubators where to demonstrate scalable, cost-effective and bankable urban scale solutions to significantly increase the energy efficiency in the STARDUST cities
• Target 2. To create smart ecosystems implementing a new economic paradigm in the European cities, based on eco-innovation, competitiveness, low carbon, circular economy, and the creation of new markets, modernising the obsolete economic approach based in a massive use of fossil fuels and high energy intensity
• Target 3. To create and deploy open city information platforms, an ICT infrastructure that overarches all project aspects (building, energy and transport) and engages lighthouse and follower cities, and a key enabler to implement the social innovation strategy, business ecosystem and behavioural changes goals foreseen in the project
• Target 4. To organise and foster the transfer of lighthouse cities solutions to the four follower cities, and to support the deployment of Replication Plans in each follower city as references for future European standards of Smart Cities.
After 6 years of STARDUST project, STARDUST cities have been able to implement innovative and technological solutions with the support of partners with multidisciplinary profiles. The overall objective was to improve environmental, economic, technical, and social aspects, creating the necessary evidence for replication in other cities. However, the road travelled has not been linear. But the journey has offered many lessons for the field of Smart Cities and there have been successes along the way. STARDUST project has contributed to the creation of a new economic paradigm in lighthouse cities, based on innovation and technological integration, demonstrating that new services, products, and solutions can be implemented to make the transition to carbon-neutral cities economically viable. The solutions deployed in the Lighthouse cities have generated impacts that have been measured and evaluated, demonstrating their effectiveness in addressing the challenges related to the carbon neutrality of Europe.
