Coordination Funds

“未来智慧城镇”研究小组调查了中型城市（即城镇）如何应对数字化的挑战，并开发了数字工具来增强其宜居性。项目重点关注城镇的四个中心结构区域：公民社会与社会服务、行政与政治、经济与能源，最后是教育与文化。数字化转型作为一种不断增长的信息和流程网络，为生活和工作的各个领域提供了巨大的潜力。当今许多最紧迫的问题可以通过数字化解决，例如通过更可持续地利用现有资源。然而，与此同时，数字化也给行为体带来了重大挑战，特别是在缺乏以可持续方式实施数字化项目的财政或物质资源的情况下。在这种背景下，目前的研究经常讨论城市的转型，主要是大都市地区，通过数字化，被称为“智慧城市”。提出的概念通常基于给定的、非常狭窄的地方结构、大型管理机构和相关的大量资源。然而，大都市圈以外的城镇，虽然存在与大城市相似的结构问题，但同时又具有阻碍智慧城市概念一对一转移的特定特征，却没有出现。一般来说，中型城市有2万至10万居民，而正是在农村地区，这种类型的城市越来越多，它们作为周边地区甚至较小的城镇和社区的中心，具有重要的社会、政治和经济意义。因此，城镇具有特殊的身份，这往往导致居民对城镇和地区的特别强烈的认同。然而，这些城镇受到人口和经济变化的影响最为严重。流动性问题、生活和住房发展方面的人口变化、经济发展以及对高素质专家或全面的教育和文化提供有吸引力的条件等问题对城镇构成了特别的挑战。当这些城镇被划分为不同的地区时，这些挑战就变得更大了，在某种程度上，每个地区都必须单独开发和支持。研究小组分析了城镇面临的具体挑战，并开发了应对这些挑战的工具，从而使数字城镇的发展能够保持城镇和地区的身份和认同。由于其规模和中等复杂性，城镇最适合我们作为实验领域和“真正的实验室”进行调查和开发。根据Sen的说法，八个子项目之间的多种内容和方法相互依赖以及“能力方法”的使用加强了研究小组的一致性。

The research group ´Future Smart Towns´ investigates how mid-sized cities, i.e. towns, meet the challenges of digitalisation and develops digital instruments to strengthen their liveability. The project focuses on the four central structural areas of a town: civil society & social services, administration & politics, economy & energy, and, finally, education & culture. The digital transformation as an ever-increasing networking of information and processes offers enormous potential for all areas of life and work. Many of today’s most pressing problems can be addressed through digitalisation, e.g. through the more sustainable use of existing resources. At the same time, however, digitalisation also poses major challenges for actors, especially if, for example, financial or material resources to implement digitalisation projects in a sustainable way are lacking. In this context, current research often discusses the transformation of cities, mostly metropolitan areas, through digitalisation, referred to as 'Smart Cities'. Proposed concepts are often based on the given, very narrow local structures, large administrations, and the associated large pool of resources. However, towns outside of metropolitan regions, which have similar structural problems as large cities, but at the same time have specific characteristics that prevent a one-to-one transfer of smart city concepts, are out of sight. As a rule, medium-sized cities have 20,000 to 100,000 inhabitants, and it is precisely in rural areas, where there is an increasing number of cities of this type, that they have an important social, political and economic significance as a centre for even smaller towns and communities in the surrounding area. Towns therefore have a special identity which often leads to a particularly strong identification with the town and region for their inhabitants. However, these towns and cities are most severely affected by demographic and economic changes. Questions of mobility, demographic change in terms of the development of living and housing, economic development and attractive conditions for highly qualified specialists or the comprehensive range of educational and cultural offers pose particular challenges to towns. These challenges become even greater when these towns are characterised by different districts, each of which - to a certain extent - must be developed and supported individually. The research group analyses specific challenges of towns and develops instruments with which these can be met, so that Digital Towns can be developed that preserve the identity of and identification with the town and region. Towns, because of their size and medium complexity, are best suitable for our investigations and developments as experimental fields and ´real labs´. Manifold content and methodology interdependencies across the eight subprojects and the use of the ´capability approach´ (according to Sen) strengthen the coherence of the research group.