Interview with the members of CLINES Project

“Europe should aim to lead the technological development of Smart Cities”

To what extend do you consider to have met the Project CLINES objectives?

We started with a very demanding programme, and though there is still some outstanding work to be done, we feel that we have reached our target. On the one hand, we already share a vision around the existing capacities within the European context, so as to play a key role in the already rising city smartization process through previously analysed technological fields – specifically the embedded ones. Furthermore, added to the vital diagnosis of this shared ambition, we have an Action plan available considered to match the starting point and final objective’s needs,

All this process has allowed us to understand that collaboration is key within our field, and somehow, we can say that after the work carried out in the CLINES Project, we have managed to strengthen not only our own capabilities, but how our countries are positioned facing the expected growth of an enormous market

What has cross-project collaboration meant for each of the participating regions?

Without a doubt, a vast amount of wealth in terms of knowledge and opportunities. The CLINES Project has allowed us to see how these cooperative partnerships enable local strategy completion and enrich them with a long term vision. Multi-territorial internalization and cooperation is an industry´s priority across all the European regions. The Project has allowed us to touch base with the skills of future partners and to get fully acquainted with ours. We are aware that nowadays nobody has all the skills necessary to fulfil such an extended value chain, and hence being able to understand where the strengths and potential synergies of our own capacities are is an extremely competitive advantage

What conclusions have you drawn after analysing the European technological capabilities?

For one thing, we have seen that the offer fragmentation can be resolved through these cooperation models... Technology mainstreaming enables us to play an important role in all the key developments: urban planning, health, transport, energy etc... We have verified that the relevant skills exist, that they are consistent and that, to a large extent, there is a great complementarity between them, Europe can hope to play a great technological role in the development of Smart Cities.

And after the analysis?

The next stages are defined by the program devised throughout the CLINES Project and will be left in the hands of the members of the SmartCityTech Project. All the Cluster members will continue through the second stage, but our objective is to open the collaboration frame to new members, who will allow us to expand the scope of the scheduled actions in the Work Plan. So, the next goal is to expand the coverage of this strategy

The challenge lies within the World market, and so, the main objective of the new Project is the internationalisation of our solutions and competences. The lessons learnt previously help us place the European technological offer in a global best-in-class position. We have already kick-started good projects that can be easily replicated in other parts of the world. It is imperative that our companies can scale their results, and so, there is a strong need for a shared strategy