Developing the concept of Tallinn as a smart city (City of Tallinn/European Commission)

The aim of the project was to carry out a sectoral description of Tallinn as a smart city, to carry out an international comparative analysis and to compile a model for the ex-ante evaluation of future innovation projects. The keywords used to express both the technological and social aspects of a smart city, such as digital, virtual, creative, learning, humane, all-encompassing, knowledge-based, open, competitive, problem-solving, inventive and intelligent, were used.

Based on analysis of secondary sources and expert interviews, the study answered the following questions:

What is the current situation in the field of smart city development in Tallinn?
What is Tallinn’s comparative international position in the field of a smart city?
What should Tallinn, as a local government, focus on in developing a smart city, directing business development, co-financing, etc.?
Based on which criteria are smart city projects selected?
How should the initiation and implementation of projects be organized?
How to ensure optimal and methodical management of innovation projects and ex-ante evaluation of results?
What new bold ideas could be implemented in Tallinn in the field of smart city, to promote entrepreneurship and / or increase competitiveness, and what would be the expected results?
How to create and ensure the capacity of Tallinn’s innovation ecosystem (incl. Testbeds, living labs, hackathons, etc.)?
Evaluation of pilots of ongoing and planned demonstration projects based on the new methodology – what changes need to be planned?

The analysis was based on the Giffinger (European Smart Cities) framework, which divides the smart city into six areas: smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment, and smart living. The Giffinger framework is one of the first and most widely used definitions of a smart city in the European Union.

The analysis was conducted in the framework of Interreg Baltic Sea Region project „Smart-up BSR“.

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