Digitalisation & innovation for cities of all sizes

Due to the fragmentation of the country, digital and innovative solutions are essential for Czechia’s cities to solve challenges in infrastructure and public services. If municipalities of all sizes get help and financial support in adopting smart solutions, sustainable urban development can be achieved. However, this can only happen by adopting a territorial vision: all cities in the wider region need to cooperate for integrated and innovative urban development.

The role of the EU Commission in shaping Europe’s digital future is fundamental to create an ecosystem where cities and regions cooperate and share their practices to develop technologies for a smarter European community. To do so, a solid policy framework is needed, and a corresponding infrastructure to support the adoption of such laws and projects required. Legislative measures will guarantee that data is open and information interoperable while protecting confidentiality and security of users, so that new skills, public services and businesses can benefit all cities in the European Union.

Living-in.EU is a multilevel governance initiative and a collaborative platform of which the goal is to boost and foster the digital transformation of European cities and communities in the ‘European way’, that is, basing itself on EU principles, such as citizen-centered values, a co-creation and collaborative approach, and ethical and social responsible use of data. The greatest aim of the project is to have cities, companies, regional centers, associations and more working together to tackle interrelated challenges through the use of integrated data and the creation of digital twins.

Small and medium sized cities do not always have the capacity and the resources to develop digital instruments to address current urban issues, such as climate change, increasing urbanization, and the aging population, alone. In this sense, it is important to be part of networks as well as to cooperate with the national level to develop new digital instruments and data strategies. By doing so, all challenges related to the ethical use of data, open data, digital public services, database policymaking and so on will more easily be tackled.

Cities require practical help with the digital transformation: instruments need to be developed to support them where they are not educated enough, especially regarding access to funding schemes. Besides, infrastructure must be built with the contribution of the national government to integrate the progress made on digitalisation by both the local and the regional levels, so that especially smaller cities can benefit from a territorial support.