Connecting cities across the Baltic Sea
In the dynamic landscape of urban innovation, the 10-months long METACITIES project emerges as a catalyst for accelerating, consolidating, and aligning existing MetaCity and Smart City initiatives across partner regions. The goal is ambitious: to build the world’s leading connected MetaCity Region across the Baltic Sea.
MetaCity is a novel smart city and urban innovation concept, focusing on open innovation which is supported and encouraged by digital environments and social networks. MetaCity is responding to and leveraging on the post-pandemic transition to virtual cooperation and virtual urban services. MetaCity is an emerging regional policy objective, already in regional policy planning in Oulu Region and Latvia. It aims to expand ICT-oriented Smart City development to a wider base of regional innovation capabilities and innovation capture, including for example service innovations and social innovations.
The METACITIES project connects a balanced mix of MetaCity and Smart City ecosystems: definite global thematic leaders, thematic followers, urban capital areas, mid-size central towns, and more rural regions. It will strengthen ecosystem collaboration between the MetaCity Regions in the Baltic Sea area and prepare the collaboration opportunity space. It will create a joint action plan for Baltic Sea MetaCity Regions and decide the action plan details in interaction with regional funding decision-making METACITIES aims to position the EU BSR area as the World’s leading “Connected Regional Innovation Valley” for MetaCity innovations
Objective
- The main objective of METACITIES is to speed up, consolidate, align and leverage the existing MetaCity and Smart City initiatives of the partner regions, and through this, build the world’s leading connected MetaCity Region across the Baltic Sea (BSR).
- Strengthen ecosystem collaboration between the MetaCity Regions in the Baltic Sea area and prepare the collaboration opportunity space.
- Create a joint action plan for Baltic Sea MetaCity Regions and decide the action plan details in interaction with regional funding decision-making.
Duration and partners
Duration: November 1, 2023 – September 1, 2024 (10 months)
Partners:
- EIT DIGITAL Belgium (Coordinator)
- City of OULU Finland
- Electronic Communications Office of Latvia
- Luleå University of Technology Sweden
- EdTech Hub Ventures Poland
- University of Oulu Finland
Funding
Funding source: European Commission (Horizon Europe, European Innovation Ecosystem) .
Budget: total budget is 500 000 EUR (budget for the FinEst Centre is 49 656 EUR).
The Role of the FinEst Centre for Smart Cities
FinEst Centre’s role is to strengthen the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) Cross-border Collaboration – To identify needs and ideas to advance the ability and willingness for collaboration in MetaCity theme, both between the organisations in the partner regions, and wider in the BSR area. To connect to existing BSR networks. For BSR Funding programmes alignment direct contact will be established with the BSR level funding programme managers and key BSR networks, in order to create awareness on the MetaCity joint action programme, deployment plans and funding requirements. This is done to ensure the best possible framework and to speed up the joint action programme deployment immediately after the project conclusion.
In order to advance ecosystem dialogue and facilitate learning FinEst Centre will coordinate and deploy Living Labs in each region for co-ideation, and co-planning possible actions, support programmes, tools and types of support for each region. Based on the results of the Living Labs and inputs received from the stakeholders a MetaCity Opportunities Catalogue entailing further development of each identified programme and project idea so as to present it in a concrete textual and document format that is potentially applicable into the Joint Action Plan will be developed by the FinEst Centre.
More information about the project HERE
Watch METACITIES project events recordings HERE.
