The challenge to design the smartest cities has been embraced in most larger UK cities but less is known about how to evaluate and measure the “smartness” of each approach.
Now, the SmartDframe project linked to the MK:Smart project led by The Open University has published a report: A tale of evaluation and reporting in UK smart cities, which analyses city approaches in Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough to the evaluation of smart city projects and programmes and their impacts on city outcomes. This is by:
Caird, S. with Hudson, L. and Kortuem, G. (2016) A Tale of Evaluation and Reporting in UK Smart Cities. 51pp. The Open University, UK. ISBN 9781473021082 http://oro.open.ac.uk/46008/
The report includes a Foreword by Geoff Snelson, Director of Strategy, Milton Keynes Council.
The report provides a series of smart city case studies informed by city reports and interviews with representative local government authorities that exemplify contemporary practices, offering a timely, insightful contribution to discourse about best practice approaches to evaluation and reporting of smart city projects and programmes developed in complex city systems.
Dr Sally Caird, Research Fellow, The Open University, the author of the report, said:
‘Smart city programmes are springing up across UK cities, offering solutions for contemporary challenges facing cities associated with population and urbanisation pressures, and bringing opportunities for smarter: governance, economic development, citizenship, living, environments and mobility. To support future city strategies, we need to understand the benefits of the embedded ubiquitous technologies and smart city developments in our everyday lives, by examining existing and best practice approaches to evaluation, measurement and reporting on the outcomes for cities. Cities around the world will find this new research report on smarter UK city evaluation approaches of considerable interest, in providing case studies and analysis that supports drives towards continuous improvement and city learning.’
The news is now on the Open University research website: http://www.open.ac.uk/research/main/news/evaluating-smart-city-success.
