An explorative case study of the Amsterdam Smart City partnership

Abstract

To pave the way towards a sustainable future, Smart Cities have emerged as anew paradigm for sustainable, regional development. These cities focus on theimplementation of ICT to solve social problems and increase citizen welfare. Twoaspects of a Smart City seem fundamental for its affectivity: (1) a holistic sociotechnologicalview and (2) active participation in knowledge collaboration of allurban stakeholders. In accordance with the Quadruple Helix model ofcollaboration, these main actors are government, industry, academia and civilsociety. Due to the emphasis on a central and actively involved role of citizens,innovation intermediaries have increasingly been concerned with theengagement of city inhabitants. Yet, civil society is still greatly underrepresentedin all European countries. The main research question therefore is: How caninnovation intermediaries exploit their central position in the innovativeenvironment to increase citizen participation in knowledge collaboration? In orderto answer this question, a case study with the Amsterdam Smart City partnershiphas been conducted. The actual collaboration environment of Amsterdam andthe citizen engagement mechanisms deployed by the ASC partnership have beenassessed. A comparison between this assessment and the theoretically “bestcase”Smart City has revealed several relations between the environment ofAmsterdam and lagging citizen participation: (1) although conformity in sociotechnologicalview is apparent and the Quadruple Helix model is generallyacknowledged, technology-push and upper-helix prioritization cause citizens towithhold from active participation. (2) Most deployed mechanisms fail to triggermultidirectional knowledge transfer, causing citizen lock-out. This reduces therepresentation of citizen knowledge in knowledge collaboration. To counteractthese effects, innovation intermediaries should make significant efforts to movetowards the Quadruple Helix model, by halting prioritization of the top-helix andemphasizing the support for community organizations that facilitaterepresentation a