#connectedinEurope at MPSC regional conference in Freiburg

Panel interview on stage to share experiences of the #connectedinEurope programme and Freiburg's involvement in it — DLR / Tobias Hartmann

Within Germany’s funding programme for Model Projects Smart City (MPSC), several regional conferences take place each year. The aim is to bring together geographically proximate cities from the funding programme to exchange on their approaches and the progress of their projects and solutions. Moreover, it is an opportunity for non-funded local municipalities to gain access to the ecosystem of the German model projects, advance their own smart city ambitions and build connections with like-minded partners.

For the regional conference in October 2024 in Freiburg, the host city decided to include a decidedly international perspective, given that Freiburg and the region is strongly embedded in the cross-border region with France and Switzerland. This also shows in their engagement and trilateral project with Basel and Mulhouse to build a joint data space (Triregio Data Space) which emerged in the context of the #connectedinEurope programme.

Staff members of the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN) who were in charge of implementing #connectedinEurope, joined the panel of the conference to share experiences from the peer-exchanges and tandem projects. Together with Freiburg they also hosted a special workshop on how to enhance smart city projects by integrating and connecting them regionally or even internationally.

The core question: How do smart city projects get elevated when their data input and applications go beyond their own urban precincts?

Chart on number of respondents estimating the degree of completeness of data inventories in their local administrations — Fig. 1 - estimations of the degrees of completeness of municipal data inventories GIZ

After a keynote on the broader dynamics at the EU level to foster said integration of digital (smart city) solutions, and illustrations of several such cross-border smart city examples, notably Triregio Data Space, participants shared insights on the data ecosystem in their municipality, as well as estimates on which other interesting data holders exist in their community. While not being a necessary condition for all smart city measures, the task of properly cataloguing the data the municipality holds remains crucial, especially for integrated approaches. Many municipalities have not reached elevated levels of that so far. Fig. 1 shows a sample of how respondents in the workshop estimated the completeness of the “data inventory” in their own municipality. A data inventory for this purpose was understood as data that is complete, structured, and cataloged at a single point for better overview. The height of the bars denotes the number of respondents estimating their completeness levels at given steps of 10% points. We see that no workshop member estimated the completeness level of their municipality to be at above 60%.

Chart showing the percentage of respondants estimating relatively many data available for several municipal sectors in their local administration — Fig. 2 - estimation of catalogued data availability for several municipal sectors GIZ

Also, local administrations hold relatively many data on certain municipal sectors themselves, while on others they hold relatively few, therefore rendering empirical policy-approaches more difficult and implying the need for shared data, e.g. through data spaces. Fig. 2 shows the percentage of respondents in the workshop who reported that their local administration holds relatively many data for a given sector. (Multiple mentioning was possible.)

In the last section of the workshop, people came together in smaller groups to brainstorm which of the previously mentioned data in municipal sectors could be leveraged for regionally and internationally integrated solutions. Ideas ranged from more precise balancing of climate emissions, to benchmarking of energy usages, stackings of mobility services or early integration of proximate development plans in the region.

For further questions or remarks, feel free to reach out to the team of the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN) at iscn@giz.de

#connectedinEurope at MPSC regional conference in Freiburg

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The core question: How do smart city projects get elevated when their data input and applications go beyond their own urban precincts?

Enoh Tabak

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