Empowering Citizen-Oriented Smart City Innovation in Mexico (ECOSCIM)

The term "Smart City" is currently used all over the world to talk about urban futures. It can mean lots of different things. But it often means using digital technologies to help manage cities more efficiently. For example, this type of technology can help manage traffic flows or pollution. Smart City innovation can be about efficient city management, but it can also open up new opportunities for citizens to participate in the governance of their cities.

There is currently a debate about whose interests are served by the Smart City, and whose interests should be served. Are there people who are disadvantaged or excluded by smart urbanism? If so, then how can we stop that from happening? Smart City innovation spends too much time focusing on management and engineering challenges - getting the technology to work - and not enough time thinking about where smart urbanism might be taking us. We need to think more about the opportunities, risks and vulnerabilities created by increasing reliance on digital technology.

This project will develop a new method to help the Smart City innovation process. It will do this by working with citizens, community groups and policy makers in Mexico City. The project is seeking to make sure that innovation is oriented towards citizens' priorities and interests: the development process should be forward-looking, integrated, inclusive and equitable. The project will also examine the social and political organisations and institutions that Smart City projects need to interact with in order to understand how this broader context can act to enable or frustrate citizen-oriented projects.

The project will achieve its objectives by looking at the stages of Smart City development: anticipation and conception; development and implementation; and operation. It will carry out case studies of existing projects planned and in operation in Mexico City. These will help us understand, first, how the planning process for these projects measures up against our new framework and, second, whether the way they operate is inclusive and socially equitable. The project will interview users and non-users of the Smart City projects and those involved in running the projects. Our researchers will also interview people from different sectors who are involved in Smart City policy and practice to understand the barriers and enablers to effective innovation in Mexico City. We will then work with citizens to discuss what they would like Smart City futures to look like. This will be done through a series of workshops. These workshops will lead to a process of Smart City development: we will work with a smaller group of citizens to co-create the concept for a new Smart City innovation. The final part of the research will discuss this idea for a new innovation, along with the information about barriers and enablers to innovation, with policy makers to see how the whole system might be changed to make it more welcoming to citizen-oriented innovation.

Each stage of the project will produce a report and a short briefing document. These will be made available through the project website. We will publish updates on what we are learning from the project as we go along. At the end of the project we will produce a report giving an overview of the whole project and write academic articles. Finally, we will use all the learning from the project to collaboratively produce a toolkit designed to help citizens and communities think about the issues associated with Smart Cities and to help them carry out a more effective process of Smart City innovation.

The project will help to promote citizen welfare and effective urban governance in Mexico. In particular, its emphasis on co-creation and inclusion will enhance citizen autonomy and well-being. It will do so by drawing on the unique combination of strengths in Smart City research and practice in Bristol, which has a track record of internationally excellent research in this field.

Who will benefit from this research?

This research will benefit the participating citizens, community groups and NGOs in Mexico City through building capacity and shared experience of co-creating Smart City futures and innovations. It will benefit the Smart City policy and practice community in Mexico City by providing opportunities for social learning about the preconditions for inclusive and equitable Smart City development, and reflecting on the necessity and scope for institutional change to move closer to those conditions.

Citizens and community groups in other cities in Mexico and in other DAC countries will also benefit from project outputs, particularly the later outputs designed for non-academic audiences. These will be geared towards offering guidance on how to engage inclusively and thoughtfully with Smart City innovation and how to think about the institutional conditions needed for success in delivering inclusive and equitable Smart City development. This sort of reflection can open up a space for dialogue about the need for change.

The project will promote welfare directly through building social capital and knowledge through the co-creation process. It will also promote welfare through articulating a framework that will empower citizens to engage with Smart City developments, rather than Smart City development being something that is experienced as something imposed from elsewhere. Ultimately, by giving citizens voice and promoting meaningful participation, while at the same time assessing how political and social institutions can be more responsive to those actions, this process can contribute to increasing trust in government, social cohesion and, as a result, economic development.

Members of the research team will benefit from the processes of knowledge exchange, collaboration and social learning designed in to the project.

The research will benefit the scholarly community interested in Smart Cities. This is a major topic of contemporary debate across a number of academic disciplines within and beyond the social sciences. We envisage this project making contributions that will be of interest to those working in the fields of social policy, science and technology studies, urban politics and governance, and urban geography.

What will be done to ensure that beneficiaries have the opportunity to benefit from this activity?

The project will disseminate learning as it progresses, publishing interim reports, briefings, and regular news items about the project. Short videos summarising key findings will be produced (in English and Spanish). These outputs will be disseminated via a range of online channels in Mexico and UK, including the active social media communities in Mexico City. Project partner organisations can provide access to local networks through which project information can be circulated. We will also disseminate key reports within communities in hard copy to mitigate the risk that those without access to relevant technologies find themselves excluded.

Later project outputs designed for non-academic audiences will be disseminated online; through a public launch; and through established local, national and international networks.

A programme of dissemination at academic conferences will be agreed within the team, ensuring that this includes developmental opportunities for more junior members of staff.