RiSSource
Urban areas have always been at the centre of economic growth and technological advances. The promise of jobs and prosperity pulls people to cities. Today, more than half of the population live in urban areas and 1.5 million people are added to the global urban population every week. Poor air and water quality, insufficient water availability, waste-disposal problems, and high energy consumption are exacerbated by the increasing population density and demands of urban environments. While sustainable cities occupy only 0.5% of the world’s land, cities consume 75% of its natural resources and account for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Cities are hungry, global economic engines and the economic powerhouses of the global economy. In 2015, 85% of global GDP was generated in cities. In fact, for millennia cities have been our centres of activity, drivers of growth and bastions of productivity. No country has ever reached middle income status without urbanising. Evidence suggests that environmental factors have a real impact on economic activity. Despite China’s impressive economic transformation, according to the World Bank China’s poor urban air quality and water pollution costs the economy 6% GDP each year. In the US the cost of urban sprawl is estimated to be $1trillion per annum.
The fragile balance between the challenges of urbanization, the impact on economic growth, prosperity and social welfare requires collaboration between policy makers, citizens, companies, researchers, investors and other ‘urban area’ stakeholders. Cluster organizations can play a leading role mobilizing those stakeholders into collaborative projects. Hereby leveraging on the potential of key enabling technologies such as smart systems technology.
Smart Systems technology is fundamentally changing the way we live, as we embrace new digital platforms through which urban area stakeholders can interact with each other. Such technologies have the potential to help our cities to operate more efficiently and effectively. Therefore leading to improved productivity and economic growth.
The RiSSource initiative is set up to modernize industrial ecosystems in urban areas by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of flows of goods, products, materials, energy,water, food and people through the implementation of smart systems enabled solutions. The RiSSource initiative is implemented by the SmartCityTech partnership which currently consists out of 9 clusters organizations from 7 different EU regions. The initiative will leverage on Regional Innovation and Smart Specialization Strategies from the participating regions and will facilitate interregional collaboration between Urban Area and Key Enabling Technology stakeholders.