Methodological identification of opportunities for development of smart specialization in Pomorskie Voivodship in Poland

Smart specialization as a concept plays a more and more important role in development of the regions. David, Foray and Hall point it, as an important instrument for creating a strategy for the development of innovation at the state and regional level as well as for defining and building the knowledge-based economy. This term is present in a number of strategic development documents in the European Union, including Europe 2020, published by the European Commission in 2010. It implies the need for countries and regions to specialize as well as focus development of innovation in areas that are consistent with their endogenous potentials. This paper presents the method as well as results of the studies undertaken to define the smart specialization of Pomerania, which is one of two Polish voivodeships with access to the Baltic Sea. Its main settlement node is the emerging metropolitan area of Gdansk - the fourth largest in Poland. Part of this research was project Identification of Smart Specialization in Pomerania Voivodeship - Technological Convergence, commissioned by the Regional Government. Technological convergence was defined as phenomenon of the use of technologies from different industries for the creation of a new specialization in order to gain a competitive advantage. The aim of the project was to analyze and evaluate the economic potential of the Voivodeship, indicating possible areas of cooperation between representatives of different industries. It was assumed that the process of identifying smart specialization would be a bottom-up approach. Regional Government invited all actors to build a partnership. They worked on identifying potentials then building on this analysis, developed a common strategy for the development of technological and functional smart specialization. Analytical and diagnostic processes included: desk research, expert studies, individual in-depth interviews, focus group interviews, workshops and the Delphi study, SWOT analysis. The result is an aid for all stakeholders to identify opportunities and specify areas of development of smart specializations for the Voivodship. The method of identification of the priorities and implementation of the actions for the development of smart specializations assumes that the process itself should be flexible, meaning that adopted priorities and allocation of resources need to be reviewed and modified if such need occurs. The authors also present their recommendation to enhance this method; propose its modification and expansion to include e.g. conduct the Competitive Position Analysis of Porter's Five Forces

State of the art in open platforms for collaborative urban design and sharing of resources in districts and cities

This work discusses recent developments in sharing economy concepts and collaborative co-design technology platforms applied in districts and cities. These developments are being driven both by new technological advances and by increased environmental awareness. The paper begins by outlining the state of the art in smart technology platforms for collaborative urban design, highlighting a number of recent examples. The case of peer-to-peer trading platforms applied in the energy sector is then used to illustrate how sharing economy concepts and their enabling technologies can accelerate efforts towards more sustainable urban environments. It was found that smart technology platforms can encourage peer-to-peer and collaborative activity, and may have a profound influence on the future development of cities. Many of the research and development projects in this area to date have focused on demonstrations at the building, neighbourhood, and local community scales. Scaling these sharing economy platforms up to the city scale and beyond has the potential to provide a number of positive environment impacts. However, significant technical and regulatory barriers to wider implementation exist, and realising this potential will require radical new approaches to the ownership and governance of urban infrastructure. This paper provides a concise overview of the state of the art in this emerging field, with the aim of identifying the most promising areas for further research

Participatory Budgeting in Poland – Missing Link in Urban Regeneration Process

AbstractIn last thirty years Poland has gone a long way toward democracy and decentralization. Role of public participation in planning is increasing rapidly and recently many new instruments of empowering the community is being introduced, participatory budgeting is one of the most important. On the other hand, urban regeneration is one of the most important challenges of polish cities are facing. Technical and transport infrastructure investments are, in most cases, financed by public sphere. We can also observe increasing role of NGO's in neighbourhood regeneration process but their scope of actions is mostly limited to soft projects. The paper tries to answer the question whether participatory budget can fill this gap and be a source of financing local community needs. This paper shows the creation and evolution of participatory budgets in Poland as well as the process of their implementation including examples of projects financed from participatory budget in Polish cities. It consists of analyses of participatory budgets’ expenditures structure and influence of the projects on the neighbourhood and the city. It also assesses long term influence and identify barriers, challenges and opportunities of using this instrument in urban regeneration process

Comparison of smart specialization in coastal regions in Poland

The priorities set by the European Commission for Programming Period 2014-2020 introduced new instruments supporting regional development but also posed new requirements that must be met by European regions. One of them is smart specialization. To implement Strategy for Europe 2020, published by the European Commission in 2010, EU Member States and their regions develop strategies for smart specialization that will show directions for providing support to the strengthening of research, development and innovation. Smart specialization is an important instrument for creating a strategy for the development of innovation at the state and regional level as well as for defining and building the knowledge-based economy. This paper presents analyzes of processes responsible for identifying smart specialization in West Pomeranian and Pomeranian Regions. This article is a continuation and extension of the research on the process of emergence of smart specialization in Pomeranian Region by the inclusion of the West Pomeranian Region into this study. Both Regions are situated on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and are seats of main Polish harbours and shipyards. Their regional capitals Gdansk and Szczecin are emerging metropolitan areas as well as economic engines of polish economy. It is our goal to analyze to what extent emergence of smart specialization is helping to focus development of innovation in areas consistent with their endogenous potentials. The aims of the paper are: comparison of the areas of smart specialization with particular emphasis on the specifics of the seaside location and endogenous potential of both regions, comparison of emergence and the process of selection of smart specialization, including its evaluation. In Pomeranian region the process of emergence of smart specialization was a bottom-up one where Regional Government invited all actors to build a partnership. The result is participation of all stakeholders to identify opportunities and specify areas of development of smart specializations for the Voivodship. In other regions of Poland it was more of a top-down process, conducted by experts and the West Pomeranian Region is an example of this approach. Methodology of the research applied for this study is desk research (analysis of literature, documents and strategies from Voivodeship Marshal Offices from both West Pomeranian and Pomeranian Regions), individual in-depth interviews, participation in the process of emerging of smart specialization in Pomorskie Voivodeship (focus group interviews, workshops, SWOT analysis and Delphi study) and comparative analysis of the process of emergence and selection of the smart specialization in both regions

The Use of Big Data in Regenerative Planning

With the increasing significance of Big Data sources and their reliability for studying current urban development processes, new possibilities have appeared for analyzing the urban planning of contemporary cities. At the same time, the new urban development paradigm related to regenerative sustainability requires a new approach and hence a better understanding of the processes changing cities today, which will allow more efficient solutions to be designed and implemented. It results in the need to search for tools which will allow more advanced analyses while assessing the planning projects supporting regenerative development. Therefore, in this paper, the authors study the role of Big Data retrieved from sensor systems, social media, GPS, institutional data, or customer and transaction records. The study includes an enquiry into how Big Data relates to the ecosystem and to human activities, in supporting the development of regenerative human settlements. The aim of the study is to assess the possibilities created by Big Data-based tools in supporting regenerative design and planning and the role they can play in urban projects. In order to do this, frameworks allowing for the assessment of planning projects were analyzed according to their potential to support a regenerative approach. This has been followed by an analysis of the accessibility and reliability of the data sources. Finally, Big Data-based projects were mapped upon aspects of regenerative planning according to the introduced framework