Overview
‘Smart Cities’ provide new ways of designing and managing public services, infrastructure, sustainable mobility, economic development and social inclusion. However, two-way communication between citizens and urban policymakers is lacking strongly. This is partly the result of underutilisation of citizens’ social media feeds and useful open data sets.
The SmartGov project aims to create new support tools that effectively incorporate linked open data and social media into fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs). FCMs are useful modelling and visualization tools for discussing policy scenarios between citizens and governments. The developed tools will be tested and implemented in four European cities.
Building on systematic evidence reviews, the goals of SmartGov are:
- to develop a set of user-friendly tools in accordance with legal frameworks, including a FCM-based data-integration tool, a Social Media engine and advanced visualization tools;
- to test and implement the tools in cities in Cyprus (Limassol) and Spain (Quart de Poblet), and cities supporting SmartGov (Vienna and Amsterdam), and
- to disseminate the outcomes throughout Europe.
SmartGov dissemination will effectively build on networks of international organizations, e.g. EUROCITIES and Major Cities of Europe.