Nicos Komninos

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | AUTH · School of Engineering

Innovation systems consist of different organisations from the quadruple helix, as well as the interactions and linkages between them. Smart technologies and ICT play a key role in the efficiency of systems. At the same time, regional scale is considered crucial for studying innovation in systems. However, the lack of many important data at the reg...

This paper looks into three conditions that are present in most discourses on urban liveability, namely geographical inclusion and poverty, carbon neutrality and climate change, and urban transport. We start with poverty and inclusion, which have been considered as the most important factors that shape liveabilty in cities over time, determining wh...

The proliferation of the Internet of Things has been instrumental in the digitalization of smart cities, where various technologies are leveraged to enable data utilization. However, achieving interoperability among diverse technologies remains a challenge due to heterogeneity. In this regard, ontologies have been proposed as a standalone solution...

This chapter argues that smart cities offer a perfect testbed for experimentation with disruptive technologies on public services across different domains, such as utilities (water, waste, recycling), transportation, environmental protection, safety and security (police, fire protection), health, government processes (tax collection, registers) and...

This research paper focuses on pathways towards a digital and green transition. We assess a generic pathway for the transformation of industry ecosystems in cities and regions based on processes of prioritisation, ecosystem identification, and platform-based digital and green transition. We start with problem definition and hypotheses; review relat...

Innovation is considered a key driver for economic growth and is usually studied in the form of systems, with the regional level being arguably the most important. Despite constantly improving technological infrastructure, the human-related aspects of innovation are still the most important part of the innovation process. The human factor in innova...

Smart cities constitute a new urban paradigm and a hegemonic phenomenon in contemporary city development. The concept envisages a data-enhanced future and efficiency gains made possible by automation and innovation in city activities and utilities. However, the way smart cities are created brings about two weaknesses. First, there is strong compart...

The widespread use of digital networks, technologies, and platforms, that allow humans, physical objects, and machines to interact with each other, has significantly affected the structure, components, and knowledge processes of innovation systems that have been transformed into cyber-physical innovation environments. Such environments operate at v...

Contemporary smart cities involve a very high number of software applications and hardware devices that connect to the physical and social space of cities and form complex global ecosystems in different knowledge and activity domains (transportation, logistics, healthcare, local communities, industry, governance, social care and many more). In this...

The aim of this paper is to shed light on projects transforming cities through smart systems, digital technologies, and e-services. The concepts of “smart city” or “intelligent city” appeared in the mid-1980s and since then an extensive array of articles and reports have been published. However, there is still fuzziness about what projects exactly...

The unprecedented development of the information and communication technologies sector has accelerated the spectacular changes in societies and employment trends worldwide. The adoption of ICTs in innovation systems has been a key factor in the overall competitiveness of economic regions and national economies. This paper studies the impact of ICT...

Net-Zero Energy Districts (NZEDs) are city districts in which the annual amount of CO2 emissions released is balanced by emissions removed from the atmosphere. NZEDs constitute a major component in a new generation of “smart-green cities”, which deploy both smart city technologies and renewable energy technologies. NZEDs promote environmental susta...

Intellectual capital is an overarching concept that includes the intangible, human-related factors that are relevant to the innovation process, such as human capital and social capital. In the present study, intellectual capital was assessed by indicators measuring different aspects of human and social capital. Factor analysis demonstrated the exis...

The paper is a follow-up of a previous investigation and effort to develop the ontology of the smart city (Komninos, N., Bratsas, C., Kakderi, C., and Tsarchopoulos, P. "Smart city ontologies: Improving the effectiveness of smart city applications". Journal of Smart Cities, vol. 1(1), 1-17. https://www.komninos.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Sm...

Intelligent cities or smart cities evolve bottom-up along with the digitisation and the creation of digital entities linked to human activities, physical space, and institutional settings of cities; but also, they progress top-down through smart city strategies and projects designed and implemented by public authorities. Yet, thirty-five years sinc...

Fundamental principles of modern cities and urban planning are challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the advantages of large city size, high density, mass transport, free use of public space, unrestricted individual mobility in cities. These principles shaped the development of cities and metropolitan areas for more than a century, but c...

Fundamental principles of modern cities and urban planning are challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the advantages of large city size, high density, mass transport, free use of public space, unrestricted individual mobility in cities. These principles shaped the development of cities and metropolitan areas for more than a century, but c...

Policy-making in local public administrations is still largely based on intuition rather than being backed up by data and evidence. The goal of this work is to introduce the methodology and software tools for contributing toward transforming the existing intuition-based paradigm of policy-making into an evidence-driven approach enabled by heterogen...

The paper focuses on the design of urban digital transformation strategies. It builds upon the lessons learned from the Digital Cities Challenge initiative, developed by the European Commission, designed to empower European cities to design and implement digital transformation strategies for the uptake of advanced digital services and the smart gro...

The paper negotiates two main questions of the methodology of EDP in Smart Specialisation. First is the granularity level of detail in the analysis and the assessment of dynamism of economic activities. We argue that NACE three-digit codes offer the best combination of homogeneity of statistics and sectoral studies. Still, all NACE three-digit code...

The effect of digital transformation towards more efficient, place-based and bottom-up innovation policies at different spatial scales has proven significant, as digital technologies modify existing policy-design routines in cities and regions. Smart places (cities, districts, neighbourhoods, ecosystems) depend on the way digitalisation disrupts sy...

Our view of smart cities goes beyond algorithmic solutions and focal system optimisation, without underestimating the importance and contribution of such solutions. Our intention is to make clear the difference between smart city optimisation and smart city intelligence. The main argument of the book is that solutions for smart cities, addressing t...

Cities have been experiencing significant transformations during the last decades, by introducing novel approaches to problem-solving and governance paradigms. The adoption of smart systems and technologies in cities was made through an interdisciplinary process that connects theories, methodologies, and practices from diverse research fields, like...

This chapter discusses the preconditions for the development of public smart city services by grounding their design on service-dominant logic. The aim is to pinpoint the critical aspects of the service-dominant approach in the public sector context and smart city development, and on that basis provide an analytical picture of how the instances of...

The concept of Communities of Interest (CoI) is used in a variety of landscapes to describe an agglomeration of entities that can be of any type of organizations or people that are concerned with the exchange of information in some subject area or that share a common goal or environment. In the landscape of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), impo...

The emergence of the cloud computing paradigm has found fertile ground in the smart cities discipline, especially with regards to its benefits both in terms of big data storage and analytic capabilities and in terms of smart city service provision. Over the past years we have noticed an abundance of publications on cloud computing; from government...

The white paper on “Intelligence and Co-creation in Smart Specialisation Strategies” outlines some key conclusions from the Online S3 project, funded under the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission. The Online S3 project has produced an online platform composed of software applications and roadmaps that facilitate the design and impleme...

In the theory of urban development, the evolutionary perspective is becoming dominant. Cities are understood as complex systems shaped by bottom-up processes with outcomes that are hard to foresee and plan for. This perspective is strengthened by the current turn towards smart cities and the intensive use of digital technologies to optimize urban e...

The Online S3 Platform (http://s3platform.eu/) aims to expand administrative capabilities of regional institutions, and thus, become an essential tool for improving the effectiveness of decision-making processes. The report describes the overall Online S3 platform mechanism, in terms of information flows and application interoperability. Its main r...

The idea that digital innovation increasingly shifts power from the supply-to the demand-side (or to the "customers") is becoming ever more popular. And this holds true not only for the private sector but also for the public sector. At the same time, emerging technologies-notably the so-called SMAC technologies (social, mobile, analytics, cloud tec...

The paper discusses the conditions that allow diverse phenomena such as 'smart growth', 'smart specialisation', 'smart cities', and 'smart communities' to be considered as constituting components of the 'smart everything' paradigm. We look at the features of the smart everything paradigm and how it relates to this group of concepts that describe th...

The new paradigm of smart city (intelligent city is the equivalent term in languages derived from Latin) has emerged from academic research and experimental city projects over the last decades. A series of publications and planning initiatives that have appeared during this period show how Internet technologies can be used to empower citizens and o...

http://www.stellenboschheritage.co.za/wp-content/uploads/Intelligent-Cities-and-Globalisation-of-Innovation-Networks.pdf

Regions in the European Union (EU) are called to design and implement Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), as a prerequisite to receive funding for research and innovation from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). To facilitate and streamline this process, the European Commission (EC) has published a Guide t...

This paper analyses the ‘big picture’ of the smart city research field by means of a bibliometric analysis of the literature on smart cities produced between 1992 and 2012. The findings show that this new field of scientific inquiry has started to grow significantly only in recent years, mainly thanks to European universities and US companies. Its...

Purpose This paper investigates the potential contribution of smart city approaches and tools to sustainable urban development in the environment domain. Recent research has highlighted the need to explore the relation of smart and sustainable cities more systematically, focusing on practical applications that could enable a deeper understanding o...

The European Union's (EU) directions for Regional Smart Specialisation Strategy (RIS3) development call for the design and integration of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism for allowing a better control and periodic refinement of the strategy. In line with this requirement, the purpose of this paper is to present a Monitoring platform that was c...

Online S3 News - 31st May 2017

This report provides an overview of the use of various analytical methods in the design of regional smart specialisation strategies (RIS3). It then sets out and explain the rationale and justification for the selection of 30 methods currently applied in or applicable to RIS3 development. Using this background information tailored online tools will...

Smart cities are high on the political agenda around the globe. However, planning smart cities and deploying applications dealing with the complex problems of the urban environment is a very challenging task that is difficult to be undertaken solely by the cities. We argue that the uptake of smart city strategies is facilitated, first, through the...

Cloud Computing has emerged during the last years as a disruptive model with the ability to transform IT organizations to become more responsive and agile than ever before. This model represents a fundamental change in the way information technology hardware and software are invented, developed, deployed, scaled, updated, maintained and paid.As org...

The Special Issue “ Smart Cities and Cloud Computing ” of the Journal of Smart Cities focuses on smart city solutions that are deployed over various types of cloud environment and discuss challenges and solutions related to the use of cloud computing, and mainly the migration of smart city services to the cloud. The papers included are based on exp...

This paper discusses the interface between innovation systems and digital systems. It is based on a literature review that examines how innovation and smart environments converge from the bottom up, and how innovation strategies and digital strategies are connected and shape a common set of objectives and actions for growth. Following an introducti...

This paper addresses the problem of low impact of smart city applications observed in the fields of energy and transport, which constitute high-priority domains for the development of smart cities. However, these are not the only fields where the impact of smart cities has been limited. The paper provides an explanation for the low impact of variou...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess how national and regional authorities in south-east Europe in a period of crisis perceive and set in motion research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3) and the options that these strategies offer to overcome the current fiscal and development crisis. Design/methodology/approac...

As city authorities are becoming increasingly aware of the concepts 'intelligent city? and 'smart city' they undertake initiatives for designing new e-services that address challenges of development and sustainability more efficiently. However, the existing literature primarily focuses on application development, while the whole city planning proce...

This book concludes a trilogy that began with Intelligent Cities: Innovation, Knowledge Systems and digital spaces (Routledge 2002) and Intelligent Cities and Globalisation of Innovation Networks (Routledge 2008). Together these books examine intelligent cities as environments of innovation and collaborative problem-solving. In this final book, the...

ImproveMyCity is an open source platform that enables residents to directly report to their public administration local issues about their neighborhood such as discarded trash bins, faulty street lights, broken tiles on sidewalks, illegal advertising boards, etc. The reported issues are automatically transmitted to the appropriate office in public...

With the advent of mobile networks and mobile devices, mobile payment has been attractive to many ecommerce users. Mobile environment features a wide range and an increasing number of access devices and network technologies. Context-aware content/service ...

This report summarises the findings of a team of experts in support of the preparation smart specialisation strategies (S3) as a basis for the 2014-20 programming of the Structural Funds. The experts were asked to provide policy advice and methodologi cal recommendations in order to ensure the following seven key points are addressed by the Greek a...

This paper presents the results of a regional consultation exercise, initiated by the Asviloc+ South East Europe territorial cooperation project, with the aim of defining a medium to long term strategy for developing innovation in the wider metropolitan area of Thessaloniki, Greece. The strategy was developed and presented for consultation in a ser...

This Special Issue of the Journal of the Knowledge Economy focuses on how advanced European cities develop strategies towards becoming “smart cities”, based on the many possible innovative usages of network infrastructures and Internet-based applications, through the engagement of open innovation ecosystems. Part of these strategies is to develop n...

The new planning paradigm of “intelligent cities” is replacing the principles of smart growth and new urbanism which have inspired urban planning over the past 20 years. The “Intelligent Thessaloniki” case study highlights how a city is adopting this new paradigm and how the deployment of broadband networks, smart urban spaces, web-based applicatio...

FP7 Fireball coordination Action, http://www.fireball4smartcities.eu/

FP7 Fireball coordination Action, http://www.fireball4smartcities.eu/

This article discusses the spatial intelligence of cities, the use of information communication technologies (ICTs) and institutional frameworks that support innovation ecosystems of cities and increase the problem-solving capability of communities and cities. It is based on three case studies on Bletchley Park, Cyberport Hong Kong and Smart Amster...

Cities nowadays face complex challenges to meet objectives regarding socio-economic development and quality of life. The concept of “smart cities” is a response to these challenges. This paper explores “smart cities” as environments of open and user-driven innovation for experimenting and validating Future Internet-enabled services. Based on an ana...

While new paradigms such as Open Innovation [1] and Web 2.0 [2] as well as Living Labs operating as a User Centred Open Innovation Ecosystem [3] promote a more proactive role of users in the R&D process, a number of existing methods for involving users are described in the literature, such as Lead User [4], User Driven Innovation [4], User Centred...

The FIREBALL project explores the impact of the Future Internet technologies on Smart Cities. This paper proposes a smart cities innovation roadmap framework and recommendations for urban development enabled by future Internet technologies. The roadmap framework aims to support the innovation policies and strategies of cities towards becoming “smar...

This paper presents an organizational framework and a methodology toolkit that tackles one of the major hurdles of economic development in South East Europe (SEE), the missing link of the innovation triple helix: the valorisation of research performed in the region's universities and research centres. SEE region is lagging behind in terms of innova...

Intelligent cities (communities, clusters, districts, multi-cluster territories) outline a new planning paradigm pertinent for urban-regional development and innovation management. This paper attributes the rise of intelligent cities in the globalisation of innovation networks, which appears in multiple forms in global technology markets, innovatio...

In the cities and regions of the twentieth first century a radical turn is taking place as information and communication technologies are converging with the innovation-led regional economies, innovative clusters and agglomerations. Intelligent cities are part of the orientation towards the creation of environments that improve our cognitive skills...

Intelligent Cities and Globalisation of Innovation Networks combines concepts and theories from the fields of urban development and planning, innovation management, and virtual / intelligent environments. It explains the rise of intelligent cities with respect to the globalisation of systems of innovation; opens up a new way for making intelligent...

This paper attempts to shed light on the Greek innovation system which is characterised by a number of asymmetries that have been prevalent over time. This paper is structured as follows: Following a brief presentation of the analysis framework (Section 2), we examine the Greek innovation system and identify four important asymmetries prevalent in...

In the dawn of the 21st century, information and communication technologies have radically altered the construction of our physical environment. Instead of constructing spaces that intermediate between nature and man’s physical condition, a new orientation is emerging attempting to create spaces that increase man’s intellectual capacity and improve...

The paper mainly looks at the digital dimension of intelligent cities. It starts from the concept of intelligent cities as territories that link human, collective and artificial intelligence, and describes four IT platforms that sustain the knowledge functions of these cities. The platforms facilitate operations in the fields of strategic intellige...

Regional benchmarking is a powerful tool for practical learning through comparing measurements, policies or outcomes, across industries, sectors, policies, products or services. In the context of policy-making it helps to deal with the effects of political fragmentation by developing a coherent vision for the regions, for regional consensus buildin...

Intelligent communities and cities (IC) belong to an emerging movement targeting the creation of environments that improve cognitive skills and abilities to learn and innovate. They represent environments that enable superior cognitive capabilities and creativity to be collectively constructed from combinations of individual cognitive skills and in...

ABSTRACT Intelligent communities,and cities belong to an emerging movement,targeting the creation of environments ,that improve,cognitive ,skills and ,abilities to learn ,and innovate.