Coordination Funds

“未来智慧城镇”研究小组调查了中等城市，即城镇，如何应对数字化的挑战，并开发数字工具来加强它们的宜居性。该项目侧重于城镇的四个核心结构领域：公民社会和社会服务、行政和政治、经济和能源，最后是教育和文化。数字化转型作为不断增加的信息和流程联网，为生活和工作的所有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来解决，例如通过更可持续地利用现有资源。然而，与此同时，数字化也给行为者带来了重大挑战，特别是如果缺乏以可持续方式实施数字化项目的财政或物质资源。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，称为“智能城市”。拟议的概念往往是基于特定的、非常狭窄的地方结构、大型行政机构和相关的大型资源池。然而，大都市区以外的城镇与大城市有着类似的结构性问题，但同时又具有阻止智慧城市概念一对一转移的特定特征，这些城镇却看不到。一般来说，中等城市有2万至10万居民，而正是在农村地区，这类城市的数量越来越多，作为周边地区更小城镇和社区的中心，它们具有重要的社会、政治和经济意义。因此，城镇具有特殊的身份，这往往导致其居民对城镇和地区有特别强烈的认同感。然而，这些城镇受到人口和经济变化的影响最严重。人口流动、居住和住房发展方面的人口变化、经济发展和高素质专家的有吸引力的条件或全面的教育和文化提供等问题给城镇带来了特别的挑战。当这些城镇以不同的地区为特点时，这些挑战就会变得更大，每个地区--在一定程度上--都必须单独开发和支持。该研究小组分析了城镇的具体挑战，并开发了可以应对这些挑战的工具，以便开发出能够保持城镇和地区的身份和认同感的数字城镇。城镇由于其规模和中等复杂性，最适合我们的调查和开发，作为试验田和“真正的实验室”。八个次级项目的多种内容和方法相互依存，以及“能力方法”的使用(根据Sen的说法)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.