The State of Development of “Smart City” Dynamics in Belgium: A Quantitative Barometer

This research relates the results of a quantitative research amongst Belgian municipalities. Pointing out key statistical observations, it provides a first scientific and quantitative state of the dynamics around the “Smart City” phenomenon in Belgium

Deciphering the understandings and appropriation of the Smart City concept: A multilevel inquiry

Over the last decade, the Smart City concept has become increasingly popular and has developed in diverse directions. The phenomenon comprises numerous orientations and different views of what a Smart City is or could be. Depending on the orientation, it provides different responses to urban and territorial challenges. Due to this diversity, identifying how stakeholders comprehend and appropriate this phenomenon is critical to further advance the scientific research, and to develop practical agendas for its implementation and governance. To analyse stakeholders’ understandings and appropriation of the Smart City, this thesis offers innovative research combining various methodologies, theories, and territorial scopes. It focuses on Belgian stakeholders at different institutional levels. The thesis is articulated around four scientific articles – a literature review and three empirical research studies – respectively titled: 1. Governance and stakeholders of Smart Cities: A call for a stronger theoretical foundation to tackle complexity, 2. Municipalities’ understanding of the Smart City concept: An exploratory analysis in Belgium, 3. Smart City appropriation by local actors: An instrument in the making, 4. Actors’ centrality in the building of a Smart City: A critical analysis using the actor-network theory process of translation. The results obtained indicate that the Smart City is not understood by Belgian stakeholders in a homogenous manner. Empirical research stresses that Belgian actors develop a variety of understandings and feature different appropriation of the phenomenon between rejection and adoption, some trends are nevertheless observed across certain categories of actors. The research offers an exploration of the factors affecting stakeholders’ appropriation. To improve Smart City implementation, this thesis provides practical recommendations based on the capitalisation on actors’ understandings and the consideration of new forms of management. Finally, the thesis calls for more careful consideration of territorial characteristics, and proposes some paths for future research on this topic

Governance and stakeholders of Smart Cities:A call for stronger theoretical foundation to tackle the complexity

Over the past few years, the phenomenon of Smart City has been perceived as a new way to transform cities and territories. Despite the popularity of the phenomenon, the concept is still fuzz and no agreed definition on Smart Cities exists (Allwinkle & Cruickshank, 2011; Anthopoulos & Vakali, 2012; Hollands, 2008; Komninos, Pallot, & Schaffers, 2013). The concept of Smart City addressed an extensive thematic scope. Smart City research is at an interdisciplinary crossroads (Ricciardi & Za, 2015). A challenge is to identify what can make a city to become smarter (Gil-Garcia, Helbig, & Ojo, 2014)? Governance is a recurring and transversal theme (Dameri & Benevolo, 2016; Gil-Garcia, Pardo, & Nam, 2015). Different aspects and forms of governance in a Smart City are described; multidisciplinary perspective and co-creations are highly promoted (Ben Letaifa, 2015). Smart City publications with governance focus emphasize on interactions between various stakeholders (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). In the literature on Smart Cities in 2017, what is known about governance and stakeholder’s interactions? Which are the theoretical approaches and empirical researches? Which governance principles are highlighted? Which actors are studied? Which territorial scales are considered? To respond to these questions, the paper introduces discussions on “Smart Cities, Stakeholders, Actors, Governance and Urban Governance” to better understand these central concepts. Then, a literature review is constructed based on a broad set of papers. An advanced search query within four databases and a methodical selection of papers furnished a set of 61 documents. Afterwards, some epistemological issues are described as the structure/agency and positive-normative debates. Finally, a discussion underlines the trends, gaps and future path of researches thanks to a confrontation of the results with some theoretical and epistemological considerations. The literature on governance and stakeholders has a late development in the Smart City publications. A fragmentation exists and is reinforced by a literature insufficiently framed by theories. Case studies and empirical researches are dominating. Governmental and private actors remain the two most discussed players, even if, the place of the civil society is gaining importance. The stakeholders’ analyses show considerations to an horizontal integration (Urban Governance Theory: Galès, 1998; Pierre, 2014). However, the vertical integration is not addressed as an essential concern. Researches are mainly concentrated at a micro or mezzo level. Researchers should pay attention to the “multilevel governance”. They should study processes and institution operations in and between varieties of geographical and organizational scales

Conference on Exploring the stakeholders’ dynamics of “Smart City” projects: the case of Belgium

This presentation proposes to explore the stakeholders’ dynamics in Belgium thanks to a multiple-case study. The research conducted is thus qualitative in nature: eleven “Smart City” projects were studied in Belgium. The goal is to highlight problematics inside the interplay and communication between stakeholders of Smart City projects and to furnish concrete practical recommendations for key stakeholders in smart city initiatives (local governments, multinational/local businesses, citizens, etc.). Even if the 11 projects are very different in their nature, the research proposes some keys scientific findings regarding stakeholders’ dynamics in this kind of projects