Infrastructuring Time in Smart Urbanism and Urban Transitions

Project Information

INFRATIME

Grant agreement ID: 892522

DOI

10.3030/892522

Project closed

EC signature date 9 April 2020

Start date 30 October 2020

End date 29 October 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 258 498,24

EU contribution

€ 258 498,24

Coordinated by

ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INFRATIME (Infrastructuring Time in Smart Urbanism and Urban Transitions)

Reporting period: 2022-10-30 to 2023-10-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

From 2020 to 2023, the INFRATIME Marie Skłodowska Curie Global Fellowship (GA n. 892522) undertook a 3 years research and training journey across Italy, Japan and Scandinavia. The project studied how temporalities of urban transformations and networked urban infrastructure interfere and interact with the new climatic regime. INFRATIME explored the tensions between the urgent climate change agenda (CCA), the testing of sustainable urban futures and the actual ICT infrastructure already in place for urban management. In so doing, INFRATIME developed a time-based approach to understand the entangled temporality and rhythm of urban sustainable transitions (UST) and smart urbanism (SU). Since the relevance of time for social life has been addressed in social theory, geography and urban studies, the debate has been widely growing in relation to technology and digitalisation of society. Emphasis has been given to the role of speed, acceleration, and anticipation as featuring our modern timescapes, with an increasing (yet limited, especially towards technology aspects) attention to sustainability issues.

INFRATIME has four specific objectives:

- To achieve knowledge and produce detailed accounts on how CCA, SU&UST are temporally enacted by the interplay of experimental urbanism, data infrastructures, and organizational processes, in transnational settings (WP1). 
- To innovate theoretically and methodologically by offering a transdisciplinary approach to study and understand the socio-technical production of time on multiple urban scales (WP2); 
- To advance the research field on SU&UST with an original time-based contribution (WP2); 
- To disseminate INFRATIME research results impact policy-making on SU&UST at the European and international level (WP3).

In so doing, the project contributed to better re-temporalize urban transformations to the climate change agenda. The partnership between the University of Bologna (IT) as Beneficiary and the University of Tokyo (JP) as Third Country Organisation, including the planned inter-sectoral secondment in NORDREGIO (SE), offered an ideal platform to achieve the research objectives.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the final part of the project, from October 30, 2022 to October 29, 2023, I conducted the INFRATIME tasks in line with Annex 1 of the Grant Agreement, completing the overall aim of the project.
The concluding phase of INFRATIME involved intensive dissemination work, including two main events: the INFRATIME exploitation meeting and the final event (D3.25 and D3.26) along with four publications in the pipeline, postponed according to the reworked implementation timeline. The final phase included a short three-week visit to Maynooth University at the Institute of Social Sciences (MUSSI) and Centre of Geocomputation (MU-NCG). During this period, I continued my fieldwork both online and in person, enhancing and consolidating an intersectoral network of researchers and practitioners engaged with urban transitions and smart city projects. These exchanges were invaluable for further planning and refining dissemination activities, sharing knowledge on INFRATIME project themes, and establishing new collaborative relationships for future projects. Upon returning to Bologna, I designed university courses based on INFRATIME work to begin in early 2024. As INFRATIME concluded, since October 30 2023, I have been working at the Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies - University of Bologna as an Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication. I obtained tenure after evaluation by a committee of Full Professors from the same disciplinary field.
In conclusion, the project successfully achieved its aims to produce original knowledge and innovative approaches, especially at the interface between science and policy. It also contributed to enhancing my career, skills, and professional expertise, allowing me to build an autonomous professional position in research and establish my research agenda.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The impact of INFRATIME actions in the last 12 months has been oriented to career and scientific purposes, including:

1) the enhancement of researcher’s career: In October 30, 2023 I obtain tenure as an associate professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Bologna.

2) the dissemination and the creation and consolidation of an intersectoral, interdisciplinary and international network of researchers, practitioners and public officers that revolves around temporality, smart urbanism and ecological transitions as a way to address climate change challenges. INFRATIME results have been presented in five international conferences, with the organization of four panels, and in 7 international seminars/workshop/lectures, including those organized within INFRATIME, such as the Infratime Seminar Series, exploitation event, and Roundtable.

3) The collection of data and the intersectoral engagement with urban ecological transitions in Scandinavian and Japanese cities, as well as the city of Bologna. The research on Gothenburg climate transition, together with the research performed in Tokyo and ultimately Bologna, offers a privileged perspective to observe the new approaches and policies of climate transition at the urban, national and transnational scale. INFRATIME has strengthened a transdisciplinary dialogue on climate urban transitions between experiences from the ground and transnational policies, research and practice, science and policy and the public.

4) the achievement of new knowledge and complementary skills, both related to big data and GIS and to mentoring, supervision, and gender issues. The lens of time allowed to introduce an original perspective in the debate of urban climate transitions across sectors.

INFRATIME impact has been effective at the interface between science and policy and in the production of original scientific knowledge, activating interactions between academic and non-academic professionals within climate transitions on the issue related to temporality in the achievement of net-zero targets at the local level. The knowledge achieved allowed to build a syllabus on climate transitions, to have papers submitted published, to complete the special issue, as well as a to submit a book proposal.

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