The IPSC conference facilitated a comprehensive, interdisciplinary dialog between academics and practitioners from the smart city sector and municipal administrations. Participants from the fields of computer science, urban and spatial sciences, architecture, social sciences and humanities, environmental sciences, economics and many other related disciplines were represented on site. The 50 contributions from researchers in the form of lectures and workshops demonstrated the great interest in the new conference.

The idea for the IPSC arose from the clear need to create an interdisciplinary scientific platform that deals centrally and comprehensively with the topics of Smart City and Smart Region. All conference partners shared this vision. The German-speaking world had previously lacked such a focused specialist conference. “We are firmly convinced that it was a good and important decision to create this unique conference”, explains Dr. Matthias Berg, head of the Smart City Design department at Fraunhofer IESE and initiator and organizer of the IPSC conference on the part of IESE.

Diverse perspectives on Smart City and Smart Region

At the conference, the partners provided a broad insight into their work in the field of Smart City and Smart Region:

The SmartCity Living Lab (SCLL) at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Kaiserslautern focuses on researching and testing data-driven approaches to contribute to sustainable urban development. This will be discussed at the IPSC, for example, through contributions on modeling urban complexity, the classification of decision support systems and the application of climate twins for better climate resilience.

Fraunhofer IESE presented various focal points, such as smart mobility solutions for rural areas, intelligent urban development for the needs of baby boomers, concepts for smart city ecosystems and the digitalization of rural communities based on “digital villages”. These topics illustrated the diversity of Fraunhofer IESE's research, which addresses technical and social aspects and offers solutions for urban and rural challenges.

“The conference raised our profile in the specialist community, increased the visibility of our work and demonstrated the broad spectrum of our research activities. It enabled us to maintain existing contacts and also make new ones. This enabled us to position ourselves as an important player in the field of smart cities and smart regions, but also gave us new impetus for our future research,” adds Dr. Matthias Berg.

A look at digitalization and baby boomers

In particular, RPTU organized the “Ageing Smart” focus. “Ageing Smart is a research project funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation in the field of demographic change and digitalization, in which spatial sciences, computer science and mathematics work closely together,” explains Annette Spellerberg, Professor of Urban and Regional Sociology at RPTU and spokesperson for the project. “The aim is to support local authorities in the sustainable design of spaces in view of the transition of the baby boomers, who have a particularly high birth rate, into retirement - with the help of a new type of decision support system.”

Accordingly, the participants learned about the digital participation of baby boomers in rural, suburban and urban areas in the context of social change and advancing digitalization. RPTU also presented an approach to make the accessibility of points of interest tangible: This is based on mathematical modeling, which can be used to determine the shortest intermodal routes (integrating different and preferably sustainable means of transport). This enables intermodal accessibility analyses of various public facilities on real road networks. The focus was also on how planning decisions in cities and municipalities can be simplified with the help of spatial data, particularly in the area of healthcare.

Another topic was a proposal for the classification of decision support systems in spatial planning in order to pave the way for a solid transformation to smarter cities. Last but not least, an RPTU research team showed how a GIS-based analysis can be used to identify spatial qualities of life in relation to the built environment using the example of Mannheim and what options are available for visualizing them.

Kaiserslautern: a pioneering city for smart solutions

The choice of location also plays a role, as Ilona Benz, Chief Digital Officer of the City of Kaiserslautern, reveals: “The location for this special conference was not chosen at random. The warmly digital city of Kaiserslautern has been testing smart solutions in urban development and in ensuring municipal services of general interest for more than seven years. In Kaiserslautern, we are demonstrating that the smart city has long since made the leap from science to practice. The city administration and the scientific community are working hand in hand - the cooperation with DFKI's SmartCity Living Lab in the Smart City model project is particularly unique. I am therefore very pleased that all those involved have also succeeded today in highlighting the importance of the smart city for a better life in urban areas and thus making the added value tangible for people.” During the conference, the 'herzlich digitale' team led by Ilona Benz presented various projects from the federal funding program “Smart Cities Model Projects” and offered participants smart city-related excursions in the Barbarossa city after the last day of the conference.

The long-term goal is to continue the conference in a regular format. This will further consolidate and expand the interdisciplinary diversity in the field of Smart City and Smart Region in the scientific community.

Further information: www.ipsc-konferenz.de

Photo download link: Here