University of Reading: The benefits and opportunities of Smart Cities

On the 6th February the Smart Cities Development Conference will bring together hundreds of business leaders and decision makers from across both the public and private sector to look at how we can work together to ensure development and regeneration happening across our city regions are smart, sustainable and contribute to the economic growth of the UK.

On of those joining us at the event will be Prof Tim Dixon, School of the Built Environment – University of Reading, who’ll be speaking alongside the University of Manchester, The Open University and more about how higher education institutions form an integral part of future smart cities – and how their own estates and campuses will be tailored as they continue to grow.

Ahead of the event we hear exclusively from Tim Dixon:

 

How are the University of Reading contributing to the smart cities agenda?
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In the School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading we have a strong interdisciplinary focus on research. Our remit extends ‘across the scales’ with the aim of making the built environment work better for society. Our work draws on architecture, design, science and engineering, social science and management. It addresses the intersection of the physical, biological, social and cultural environments that affect people’s lives, including quality of life, sustainability of communities, wealth generation and long-term resilience. In the urban living research group we have led and partnered in research projects which have looked at big data and smart cities on the built environment (RIC Research Trust) as well as more local and regional projects such as the TVB LEP Smart City Cluster project and Reading 2050 projects.

 

What are the key things which need to happen to ensure development and regeneration within our cities is smart, sustainable and drives economic growth?

Firstly, there needs to be a strong vision and strategic intent to develop a smart and sustainable city. This needs to bring together four main groups: universities, local government, industry and people. Secondly the built environment sector need to act more decisively, by championing change and promoting the uptake of data and smart city skills within the built environment sector. City governments therefore need to work hard to promote increased collaboration between these actors and technology companies to harness the power of built environment data, and help deliver an improved service for citizens. Cities need to recognise the benefits of using big data to improve the quality of life for its citizens through improved decision-making and better information and customer service. This also needs to recognise the challenges around privacy and security. Urban innovation is a critical concept which lies at the heart of this big data-driven revolution.

 

What are the main benefits and opportunities of Smart Cities?

In a built environment context there are very substantial benefits in bringing together owners, occupiers and their advisers at city scale to drive change. This can help unlock potentially rich data sets. However, although ‘big data’ and ‘smart thinking’ both provide powerful potential benefits for cities, they do not, on their own, provide valid solutions for today’s urban problems. We also need to recognise the key challenges associated with these concepts, and ensure that we use ‘smart and sustainable’ thinking and innovative big data to improve peoples’ lives in our cities. This means understanding how we apply ‘integration’, ‘innovation’ and ‘interdisciplinarity’ (the three I’s) to underpin applied policy and practice and R&D in the ‘smart and sustainable cities’ and ‘big data’ nexus.

 

To register your place on the Smart Cities Development Conference click here.
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