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D10.8: Plan for dissemination and exploitation of +CityxChange project
results 3 +CityxChange | Work Package 10, Task 10.1
Final delivery date: 31-10-2020
Deliverable version v.03
Dissemination level Public
Authors Sindi Haxhija (ISOCARP Institute); Tjark Gall (ISOCARP Institute)
Contributors Dirk Ahlers (NTNU); Giulia Carbonari (R2M); Javier Buron (COL)
Article 29.5 Disclaimer This deliverable contains information that reflects only the authors’ views and the European Commission/INEA is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 824260.
October 31, 2020
Document Information Project Acronym +CityxChange
Project Title Positive City ExChange
Project Coordinator Annemie Wyckmans, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Project Duration 1 November 2018-31 October 2023
Deliverable Number
D10.8: Plan for dissemination and exploitation of +CityxChange project results 3
Dissemination Level
PU-Public
License CC-BY4.0 Creative Commons Attribution, except where otherwise noted. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Status Completed
Due Date 31-10-2020
Work Package WP10 – Dissemination and Communication
Lead Beneficiary ISOCARP
Contributing Beneficiaries
Limerick City & County Council (LCCC); Mesto Pisek (MP); Municipality of Alba Iulia (MAI); Sestao Berri (SB); Obshtina Smolyan (SMO); Trondheim kommune (TK); Võru Linnavalitsus (VORU); Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); R2M Solutions (R2M)
Revision History
Date Version Author Substantive changes made
22-04-2020 v.01 Tjark Gall Revision of previous
version & new additions
31-08-2020 v.02 Tjark Gall, Sindi Haxhija Update of sections
30-09-2020 v.02 Sindi Haxhija Version for initial QA
14-10-2020 v.03 Sindi Haxhija Edits based on comments from QA
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Table of Contents Table of Contents 2
List of Acronyms 3
1 Executive Summary 5
2 Introduction 7
3 Objectives 8 3.1 Goals 8
4 Context analysis 9 4.1 Internal context 9 4.2 External context – embedded in H2020 10
4.2.1 Related policies 11 4.2.2 Main keywords and definitions 12
4.3 Example references 14 4.4 Target audience 17
4.4.1 Local audiences 18 4.4.2 Broader community of practice 19
4.5 SWOT 20
5 Strategy 21 5.1 Gearbox 21 5.2 Local involvement and contribution to project outcome 22 5.3 Communication round table & peer-system 24 5.4 Local Communication Strategies 24 5.5 Scientific dissemination 25
5.5.1 Targeted journals (selection) 26 5.5.2 Targeted conferences / scientific events 27 5.5.3 Deliverables and projects outputs 27
5.6 Tracking and monitoring of communication & dissemination activities 29 5.7 Phasing of the strategy during the project 30
6 Organisation 31 6.1 Organogram 31 6.2 Quality assessment 32
7 Means, Delivery method 33 7.1 Means related to the communication goals 33 7.2 Project website 34
7.2.1 Targeted audience 35 7.2.1.1 User experience 1: General public 36 7.2.1.2 User experience 2: Academia 36
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7.2.1.3 User experience 3: Public sector 36 7.2.1.4 User experience 4: Private sector 36 7.2.1.5 User experience 5: EU-wide Smart City/H2020 community 37
7.2.2 Audience Tracking & Analysis 37 7.2.3 News on website 39
7.2.4 Upcoming development 40 7.3 Social media 40
7.3.1 Twitter 40 7.3.2 YouTube 41
7.4 Newsletters 42 7.5 Materials 43
7.5.1 Leaflets (city-specific and extended) 44 7.5.2 Animation 46 7.5.3 Other materials 47
7.6 Supporting Tools 47 7.6.1 Visual identity 47 7.6.2 Templates 48 7.6.3 Infographics 49 7.6.4 Glossary 50 7.6.5 Outreach, partnerships & media channels 50
7.6.5.1 International Media 52 7.6.5.2 Local Media 52
7.6.6 Press Corner 54 7.6.7 Continuous public relations work and tracking 56
8 Other Activities 57 8.1 Learning Workshops 57 8.2 Climathons 58 8.3 Master classes 58 8.4 Storytelling Workshops 58 8.5 International conferences, papers and scientific articles 59 8.6 The Final Project Report and Final Project Event 61 8.7 Other activities which include engagement and communication 61
9 Conclusion 63
10 References 64
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List of Acronyms
CTA Call to Action
DoA Description of Action
DP Demonstration Project
DPEB Distributed Positive Energy Block
Dxy Deliverable xy
EERA European Energy Research Alliance
EIP-SCC European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities
EMaaS Electric Mobility as a Service
EU European Union
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
FC Follower City
H2020 Horizon 2020
INEA Innovation and Networks Executive Agency
ISOCARP International Society of City and Regional Planners
JP Joint Programme
KPI Key Performance Indicator
LCCC Limerick City and County Council
LHC LightHouse City
M&E Monitoring & Evaluation
Mxy Month xy
NTNU Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (eng.: Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
P4CA Planners for Climate Action
PC Project Coordinator
PED Positive Energy District
PERT Program Evaluation Review Technique
PR Public Relations
QA Quality Assurance
R2M R2M Solution – From Research to Market
RES Renewable Energy Systems
SCIS Smart Cities Information System
SET Strategic Energy Technology
SWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
TK Trondheim Kommune (eng.: Trondheim Municipality)
Txy Task xy
UI User Interface
UL University of Limerick
UPAT Urban Planning Advisory Teams
WP Work Package
YPP Young Planning Professionals
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1 Executive Summary This document is a revised version of D10.1: Plan for dissemination and exploitation of +CityxChange project results and D10.6: Plan for dissemination and exploitation of 1
+CityxChange project results , which provides the framework for dissemination and 2
exploitation activities of the +CityxChange project (connected to Task 10.1: Communication and Dissemination Management). This document is revised annually and supersedes the previous version. It is composed of 1) the outline of the communication goals; 2) the context in which the goals have to be implemented; 3) the formulation of a strategy and a detailed plan; 4) the organisation, tasks and roles; and 5) the means or delivery channels. Additional to smaller adaptations to the first version, it integrates elements from D10.2: Consortium identity and templates , D10.3: Project website and social media , D10.4: Project 3 4
leaflet in local languages , D10.5: List of targeted media and partnerships , as well as D10.7: 5 6
Press kits about the project for each city , and D9.6: Report on storytelling and clustering events 7 8
and its revised second version submitted also in month 24. Furthermore, the deliverable provides an overview of the communication activities of the first two years, the achieved outreach through different channels, and a compilation of the preparatory internal and external activities which aim at supporting the further process of communicating and disseminating the project and its progress and outcomes. The target audiences of the communication have been divided into two clusters:
1. Local audiences and stakeholders in the +CityxChange cities; 2. The broader community of practise, research, governance.
Based upon the goals and the context a strategy is formulated. The strategy itself is short and concise and includes three elements:
● Gearbox for embedment into a wider community of practice. This is how the project will address the broader community of practise;
● Local involvement. This is about communication at city level and the contribution of engagement to the research project. The cities will form a roundtable or learning community to exchange best practises;
● Tracking and monitoring. This is to measure the reach and impact of engagement and communication.
The goal of the communication activities will change over the course of the project: first to inform, then to engage to collect and validate, then knowledge transfer and finally dissemination of result. A wide scope of means will be used as delivery methods. The
1 D10.1 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/dissemination-plan-01/ 2 D10.6 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/dissemination-plan-2/ 3 D10.2 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/visual-identity/ 4 D10.3 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/project-website-and-social-media/ 5 D10.4 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/project-leaflets-local-languages/ 6 D10.5 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/list-targeted-media-and-partnerships/ 7 D10.7 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/press-kits/ 8 D9.6 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/storytelling-report-1/
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means are integrated across multiple work packages to support and reinforce the project and maximise the impact of its outcomes. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the ongoing and planned activities had to be adapted in their format and moved in many cases to the virtual environment, while others were postponed. While this did not reduce the overall outreach, it is partially reflected in the communication and dissemination reporting. Furthermore, an additional investment for online webinar tools as part of WP10 was needed to allow for more regular and professional online event organisation.
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2 Introduction This document describes the development, implementation and regular update of the plan for the dissemination, marketing and exploitation of the +CityxChange progress and outcomes which contributes to the fulfilment of Task 10.1: Communication and Dissemination Management. The plan builds on the previous deliverables of WP10 and includes relevant elements of preceding deliverables, such as the visual identity (see also Task 10.2: Project identity, website and social media channels), the project website and social media channels, as well as produced info materials. This approach is chosen as this planning document is seen as the central compilation of different activities and sub-tasks of the overall Task 10.1: Communication and Dissemination Management, and is the only deliverable in the communication task which is annually updated, extended, and adapted.
This update includes a revised version of Section 5, Communication and Dissemination Strategy, by reviewing and updating numbers and figures in all elements that compose the strategy, as well as, adding one extra section, (5.5), which is describing more in detail how the scientific dissemination is done. Elements that have been added to this section, namely, targeted journals, targeted conferences, deliverables and project outputs, give an overview of the scientific events and materials used to expand the scope of the project scientific dissemination.
Additionally, it details the target audiences and an analysis of channels and means of reaching them. More interactive elements are planned for and described on the project website section, 7.2. These include KPI dashboards such as the MERT (Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Tool) which is already online but not publicly promoted yet, as well as 3D visualisations resulting from the work on Decision Support Systems (DST). These tools will be integrated inon the project website. Additionally, this report contains an updated version of all outreach activities, including social media channels, YouTube channel, trimonthly newsletters, newsposts. We give an overview of the profile of +CityxChange website audience since the formal launch. This analytical reporting (7.2.2) is an update on numbers that have been extracted over the period November 2019 - September 2020.
Furthermore, Section 8 includes an overview of activities related to dissemination, marketing and exploitation that have been undertaken and those still planned. The report also details the monthly online strategic communication meetings with local dissemination managers of the LHCs and FCs as well as the activities of the local dissemination managers identifying relevant local events which can be exploited for communication of +CityxChange results and activities and updates of cities’ local websites and social media channels in English as well as local languages.
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3 Objectives This plan for dissemination and exploitation is an umbrella for all activities of the +CityxChange project which involves communication. This document has a clear structure:
1. Outline of the communication goals; 2. context in which the goals have to be implemented; 3. formulation of a strategy and a detailed plan; 4. organisation, tasks and roles; 5. means.
This document is revised annually and thereby continuously updated. That means that this second version is an updated version of the outline of the workflow and plan which was created in month 3 and is subject to updates. The plan leads to actions, the impact of these actions is measured and generates a feedback loop, and the plan will be revised and updated again. It is thereby not an extensive fixed strategy, but an agile workflow.
3.1 Goals The following objectives are defined:
● To define and manage a clear and comprehensive plan for dissemination and exploitation of +CityxChange project results. This first goal is an internal objective; the coordination of external communication within the project consortium. It includes building a strong brand, the implementation of a visual identity, communication guidelines and ensuring that information flows effectively, and dissemination is coordinated internally.
● To actively brand and communicate the project at local level in cooperation with local dissemination managers. This second goal addresses the role of communication in the cities and their regions and the innovation project itself. The degree of stakeholder engagement (including citizens) is vital in the creation and execution of the innovation project and the quality of its outcome. Cooperation with local dissemination managers is therefore very important.
● To widely share and promote project results through targeted dissemination activities using appropriate media and tools. This third and last goal is related to dissemination of the results and the embedment into the broader community of practice, research, policy, and related projects and initiatives. The impact of the project is scaled up to national and EU-levels. European Smart City and energy events, project collaborations, Expos, and scientific conferences will ensure engagement with the project approaches on different levels.
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4 Context analysis To develop a context-considerate strategy, it is necessary to give an outline of the context in which the communication goals have to be achieved. This chapter is not a strategy or conclusion, but an inventory framework in which the project has to operate. The context is composed of three elements, namely the internal context, the external context and the target audiences/stakeholders/end-users who will be involved. The context analysis ends with a SWOT analysis, which is the input for the strategy formulated in Section 5.
4.1 Internal context The internal context includes all partners in the project consortium. This team has the following characteristics:
● Collaboration via Google Drive, Slack, Skype, mail, phone and physical meetings; ● Spoken language is English; ● Core team of active people who collaborate since the start of the proposal; a
‘second generation’ of team members who joined in when the project was granted, a third generation which joined during the first year, as well as colleagues which contribute only for a short term to the project;
● The degree of knowledge on the subject matter varies. It is important to develop a common understanding of keywords, definitions and project goals;
● The project is structured into 11 work packages (WP) and internal/external communication runs across all of them. Especially WP4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11 will be active in communication.
Fig. 1: PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) diagram of the overall WP structure, developed by +CityxChange
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4.2 External context – embedded in H2020 The outlines of the call are a good point of departure for an analysis of the external context. For this report the focus is not on the translation of objectives into outcomes (that is the project setup written down in the Description of Action/DoA) but an understanding of the themes and topics and how to communicate them. From the call text (European Commission 2017) the following parts are relevant:
Specific Challenge: The COP21 Paris Agreement recognizes the role of cities and calls on them to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. The EU is committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including Sustainable Development Goal 11 ("Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable"). Many forward-looking cities have set themselves climate goals whose achievement rests on wide scale roll out of highly integrated and highly efficient energy systems. To achieve the necessary energy transition in cities, it is essential to increase energy systems integration and to push energy performance levels significantly beyond the levels of current EU building codes and to realize Europe wide deployment of Positive Energy Districts by 2050[1]. This call will also contribute to the specific objectives of the SET Plan action 3.2 - Smart cities and communities - focusing on positive-energy blocks/districts[2]. Scope: Integrated innovative solutions for Positive Energy Blocks/Districts will be developed and tested and performance-monitored in the Lighthouse Cities. Projects will consider the interaction and integration between the buildings, the users and the larger energy system as well as implications of increased electro-mobility, its impact on the energy system and its integration in planning. Lighthouse Cities will closely collaborate with the Fellow Cities[3] and should act as exemplars helping to plan and initiate the replication of the deployed solutions in the Fellow cities, adapted to different local conditions. As a sustainable energy transition will see increased electro-mobility, its impact on the energy system needs to be understood and well-integrated in planning. (…) To increase impact beyond the demonstration part of the project, each Lighthouse City and Fellow City will develop, together with industry, its own bold city-vision for 2050[5]. The vision should cover urban, technical, financial and social aspects. Each vision should come with its guide for the city on how to move from planning to implementation, to replication and scaling up of successful solutions. (…)
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Projects should also deliver: ● Effective business models for sustainable solutions; ● Practical recommendations arising from project experience on:
○ regulatory, legal aspects and data security/protection; ○ gender and socio-economics (Social Sciences and Humanities); ○ storage solutions (from short-term to seasonal); ○ big data, data management and digitalization; ○ electro-mobility: i) its impact on the energy system and ii) appropriate
city planning measures to support large scale roll-out (…) Expected Impact: Projects should contribute to:
● Meeting EU climate mitigation and adaptation goals and national and/or local energy, air quality and climate targets, as relevant;
● Significantly increased share of i) renewable energies, ii) waste heat recovery and iii) appropriate storage solutions (including batteries) and their integration into the energy system and iv) reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
● Lead the way towards wide scale roll out of Positive Energy Districts; ● Significantly improved energy efficiency, district level optimized
self-consumption, reduced curtailment; ● Increased uptake of e-mobility solutions; ● Improved air quality. ● The higher the replicability of the solutions across Europe, the better.
From this text the policy context can be derived at EU level, as well as the most important keywords and definitions. This is done in the following paragraphs.
4.2.1 Related policies Listing the related policies has a clear goal. If the project is communicated in the future to local stakeholders, it is necessary to include ‘the why’. Why does my city want to make my building block energy-positive? Why do they ask me to invest in technology? Etc. These are justified questions when the municipality proposes significant interventions in the built environment. Policies are one of the most important means to address societal goals, as only a few stakeholders operate by intrinsic ideals. Therefore, policies are an important element in the storyline to communicate the project to stakeholders. This can get shaped into a message with the format <policy> <project> <intervention>, for example, ‘because my city wants to be energy neutral in 2050, the +CityxChange project proposes to install PV panels in my building block’. The relevance of policies for communication can be found in the demonstration projects where local stakeholders are engaged. It is necessary to come up with an easy to understand storyline, which has to be developed together with the WP3-6 partners and the
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local communication managers, who can explain it in local language. A glossary of terms are developed in the project and will support dissemination. For EU level the policies have been explored and listed below, aligned with the Description of Action (+CityxChange 2018b, pp. 12-14). These form the background of the overall project ambition and also show relevant areas and fora for dissemination at different policy and technical entities:
1. The COP21 Paris Agreement 2. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 3. Accelerating Clean Energy Innovation (European Commission 2016) 4. The Integrated SET Plan, including the 100 PEDs by 2025 ambition (European
Commission 2015). 5. EU 2050 energy transition 6. EIP SCC Action Clusters 7. Amended Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, COM (2016) 765, 30.11.2016,
2016/0381 8. EU Winter Package 9. Energy Roadmap 2050, COM (2011) 885 Final, 15.12.2011 10. A policy framework for climate and energy in the period from 2020 to 2030, COM
(2014) 15 final, 22.1.2014 11. ‘Clean Energy for all Europeans’, COM (2016) 860 Final 30.11.2016 12. Accelerating Clean Energy Innovation, COM(2016) 763 Final, 30.11.2016
The national and local policy context were further analysed for the different +CityxChange cities in D3.1: Support Framework for Bold City Vision, Guidelines, and Incentive Schemes . That 9
report examines existing policies in the respective cities. Overall policies are also linked to direct fora and venues for the inter-project collaboration in WP9 and respective European networks, working groups, and institutions are further discussed in D9.1: Framework for intra-project collaboration and subsequent reports. 10
4.2.2 Main keywords and definitions For communication is it important to develop easy to understand messages. We will interact with many stakeholders including citizens. It is therefore vital to explore the main keywords and to translate them in local language to words and sentences which are accessible. The word ‘smart cities’ is a good example of a container definition which has a certain meaning to experts, and is assumed to be understood by everybody, but can be unclear to citizens.
9 D3.1 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/framework-for-bold-city-vision-guidelines- and-incentive-schemes/ 10 D9.1 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/framework-for-intra-project-collaboration
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From the call for proposal text the following main keywords are derived: ● sustainable cities ● energy transition ● energy efficiency ● positive energy blocks [definition below] ● smart cities ● electro-mobility and e-mobility solutions ● renewable energies ● waste heat recovery ● storage solutions ● co-creation ● citizen engagement
A positive energy block is defined by the EU Smart Cities and Communities call (European Commission 2017) as:
Positive Energy Blocks/Districts consist of several buildings (new, retrofitted or a combination of both) that actively manage their energy consumption and the energy flow between them and the wider energy system. Positive Energy Blocks/Districts have an annual positive energy balance. They make optimal use of elements such as advanced materials, local RES, local storage, smart energy grids, demand-response, cutting edge energy management (electricity, heating and cooling), user interaction/involvement and ICT. Positive Energy Blocks/Districts are designed to be an integral part of the district/city energy system and have a positive impact on it. Their design is intrinsically scalable, and they are well embedded in the spatial, economic, technical, environmental and social context of the project site.
In short: (1) a collection of buildings which (2) have an annual positive energy balance and are (3) well embedded in the city. A longer glossary or definition of terms is developed as part of multiple Work Packages. It is unclear if the keywords and definitions have a consistent meaning across countries and in different languages. This is a concern when communicating with stakeholders. The strategy to address this issue is that (a) WP leader ISOCARP developed a general text with a description of the project which is regularly updated, and which (b) is translated by local dissemination managers. In the process of translation, the precise wording and meaning of the keywords will be discussed. Furthermore, the need for a clear and commonly shared and agreed upon glossary became further evident during the first year of the project. This is further detailed in 7.7.4.
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Based upon the policy framework and the keywords, a key message has been developed, which will be used as subtitles close to the logo of the project, as well as quote on business cards, the website, and other material:
+CityxChange: Co-creating Positive Energy Districts, with Integrated Planning and Design, a Common Energy Market & CommunityxChange.
4.3 Example references Similar projects and best practices have been explored to understand how other projects shaped their visual communication, infographics, website structure, etc. The list of smart city projects is quite extensive. A few examples are:
1. The Innovation and networks executive agency (INEA) is an online portal listing all H2020 funded projects, organized by topic. The projects under the themes ‘Smart Cities & Communities’,‘Grids & Storage, Energy Systems’ and ‘Social Dimension of Energy’ have been explored. Our strategy is to use these projects as reference points and knowledge network for dissemination.
Fig. 2: INEA website
2. The European innovation partnership on smart cities and communities (EIP-SCC). It
is an initiative supported by the European Commission that brings together cities, industry, small business, banks, research and others. The EIP-SCC is a good example of an EU-driven network of practitioners and a gateway to many similar projects.
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Fig. 3: EIP SCC website
3. The EIP-SCC Marketplace is the platform where the Smart Cities and Communities which are part of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP-SCC) exchange knowledge. It includes case studies, toolkits, events, etc. It does not seem useful to replicate the same functionality on our project website, but rather connect both well.
Fig. 4: EIP-SCC Marketplace
4. The EU Smart Cities Information System (SCIS) website, which will be maintained to inform in detail about the project, its cities, and demos. This will further collect regular M&E reporting and lessons learned.
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Fig. 4: The EU Smart Cities Information System website for +CityxChange 11
5. The Multitouch tool has been developed by the SCC01 projects for a common,
interactive representation of the different projects and their Lighthouse and Follower Cities. It is used at exhibitions and events and allows visitors to explore the different projects and cities. +CityxChange project data has been added and will continuously be updated.
Fig. 5: Screenshot of the Multitouch tool interface
11 Available at: https://smartcities-infosystem.eu/sites-projects/projects/cityxchange
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6. In the development process of the communication plan many project websites have been explored. The websites were used as a point of reference when the outlines for the +CityxChange website were formulated in month three to six. The lessons learned from the project websites are:
1. Many websites are developed from ‘inside-out’, following the structure of a project. Our point of departure should be the user experience/customer journey. The project also uses 11 Demo Projects for conceptual organisation, which can make communication easier at a later stage.
2. This means that all digital products (like Wikis and Dashboards) should not be presented as stand-alone items, but as embedded items on subdomains with a consistent visual identity – as one continuous experience.
3. The majority of websites advertise and inform about a project. The call to action (CTA) to visitors is not always clear. There are many pages without CTA, just as an outlet of information. The UI should be designed based upon CTAs.
4. The consistency of the quality of photos and graphics varies. Animation and interaction is difficult to achieve but positively influences understanding and further interaction with the website.
5. The consistency of information presentation is not always clear. A consistent information architecture and structure should ensure clear interactions. The approach to this is further detailed in section 7.2 and more extensively in D10.3: Project website and social media . 12
4.4 Target audience During the proposal stage of the project, an overview of the target audiences was created (fig. 6) which formed the basis for the target audience analysis in the initial dissemination and exploitation plan and simultaneously acts as the foundation of the following compilation of target audiences.
Fig. 6: Stakeholder matrix, source: +CityxChange (2018b, p. 101)
12 D10.3 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/project-website-and-social-media/
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Building upon the general classification of the target audiences, two categories were developed:
A. Local audiences and stakeholders in the +CityxChange cities. B. The broader community of practice, research, governance.
These two categories are further detailed below.
4.4.1 Local audiences The first category, the local audience, includes the relevant stakeholders of the +CityxChange cities who are either (1) partner, contributor, or stakeholder involved in creating and implementing the project, (2) occupy the area of the positive energy block or (3) are or can get otherwise involved in the co-creation of positive energy districts and blocks. This primarily includes:
1. Core partners: the +CityxChange project partners and associated stakeholders 2. Direct involved: local stakeholders, home owners, landlords, housing associations,
users of the area, etc. 3. Indirect local context: the business community, experts, energy companies, etc.
Fig. 7: Principle of the local stakeholder map (reiterated from D10.1) Because of the differences of the local projects, tailored approaches are crucial. It is important to develop an extensive understanding of who the involved stakeholders in the local context are. Therefore, the local dissemination managers develop currently an inventory of local target audiences in the form of a stakeholder map. These will further guide the communication and dissemination activities. Below, an example of Trondheim Kommune is shown.
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Fig. 8. Local stakeholder map of Trondheim, developed by Trondheim Kommune
4.4.2 Broader community of practice Additional to the local audience, the second category includes stakeholders which are relevant in the international context of the project:
(a) Other urban authorities: local councils and municipalities. These can, in addition to standard local media channels in the national context, be accelerated through city networks such as the Covenant of Mayors, Eurocities, ICLEI, etc. It also includes formal and informal relations and networks the cities already have, such as national and cross-national city and smart city networks, regional networks, national organisations of municipalities, the H2020 SCC1 Smart Cities and Communities network, etc.
(b) Experts in energy, mobility and smart cities, like technology and service providers: Renewable Energy Service provider, storage technology, small and medium-sized enterprises in the energy management sector, energy service companies, green technology companies, the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) industry, etc. Additional to sector-specific media outlets, these stakeholder groups can be reached through networks of practitioners such as the ISOCARP (International Society of City and Regional Planners) network, research networks, as well as distribution systems operators, transport authorities, developers and investors (banks, loan/funding institutions, investment companies, venture capitalists, etc. These will also be considered within the bankability and replication tasks)
(c) Market Influencers: EU institutions, EIP, ERRIN, World Green Building Council, national and international planning bodies, policymakers, think tanks such as the
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Urban Agenda Partnerships, or umbrella initiatives like P4CA (Planners for Climate Action), etc.
4.5 SWOT A SWOT-analysis confronts the strengths and weaknesses of the project (internal) with the opportunities and threats of the context of implementation (external). The goal of this SWOT is to identify risks and opportunities at an early stage and to anticipate in the strategy.
Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats
- communication is well integrated with all work packages - open by default policy makes exploitation of results easier - +CityxChange cities are all small and medium sized cities so large replication potential is possible
- small and medium sized cities may have limited capacities to finance and implement additional engagement at the demonstrator sites - language barriers in communication and definitions - the project has many technical details which are rather complicated and a challenge to communicate clearly
- turn the cities into a learning community - use communication not just as dissemination but contribute to research itself - involve citizens into a complex process - test the communication material in WP8 and WP9, before large scale exploitation
- cross case comparability can be low in small and medium sized cities - cities have too varying speeds of implementation - other small and medium sized cities are not well connected to international knowledge networks - Further threats are elaborated in D11.3 Risk Mitigation Registry
To conclude it is most important to build a well functioning learning community within the +CityxChange cities. That is a prerequisite for contributing to the development itself and the knowledge transfer to other cities in a later stage. While this has happened between some partners and the Lighthouse Cities, the stage on many project constituents is still in the preparatory phase and primarily focused on the development of guidelines, frameworks, and underlying analysis. This, in combination with the slower project development in the Follower Cities, challenges the communication internally as well as externally and has to be addressed further. Some of the strategies to do so are described in the next chapter.
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5 Strategy Based upon the previous sections, a strategy is formulated. The strategy itself is short and concise and includes three elements:
● Gearbox for embedment into wider community of practice ● Local involvement & contribution to research outcome ● Tracking and monitoring of communication & dissemination activities
5.1 Gearbox The context analysis showed the main innovation topics of the project. These topics are widely studied across Europe. That means first of all that the project has, especially in its first phase, no unique knowledge position. Or to phrase it differently, we cannot expect people to come to us. We aim to become one of the forerunners on positive energy blocks, but we have to reach out to share the results and transfer knowledge to other (small and medium-sized) cities and practitioners. An appropriate strategy is to look at it like a gearbox with multiple interlocking gears reinforcing each other’s movements: the EU and national policies, other EIP-SCC projects, and existing city networks like the Covenant of Mayors, etc. as defined above. We can ‘stand on shoulders’: use the existing knowledge and networks as a point of departure and build upon that. For dissemination and exploitation that means that we do not expect all target audiences to come to us; we will frequently have to reach out to their networks and their events to profit from their coverage. This increases embedment and knowledge transfer of the project. For this we composed an overview of networks of practitioners. Included are for example the large network of ISOCARP in 85+ countries, the cities who joint the Covenant of Mayors, the European Green Leaf Award cities (which all have 20.000-100.000 inhabitants and are thereby comparable with the +CityxChange cities) and the networks of the universities in our partnership. A list of media channels was prepared in D10.5: List of targeted media and partnerships (M6) as well as an event calendar. All partners are listing attended events in a 13
shared spreadsheet, which makes it able to reflect and steer (geographical spread, type of audience, size of events, etc.). Thus the attended events will be aligned with the target audiences. Extending the dissemination of project work and outcomes, WP8 includes a framework for exploitation. Exploitation means knowledge transfer to the wider community of practise, to ensure that the results produced by the project are utilised in further activities and create positive impacts. The analysis and management of exploitable results is currently under development as part of the WP8 activities. The +CityxChange exploitation strategy has started with the identification of the project results and exploitation managers for each of
13 D10.5 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/list-targeted-media-and-partnerships/
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them which will work on the definition of an initial exploitation vision (T8.4). The list of results will be updated as the project develops. The consortium will develop short- and medium- term exploitation visions, including intellectual property consideration (T8.5) and commercialisation plans for the relevant results (T8.6). The exploitation framework also includes an overarching market and stakeholder analysis across the different sectors associated with the project (T8.3) to set the foundation of an effective exploitation of the results. Strongly linked to WP8 and WP10, WP9 performs learning, knowledge exchange, and collaboration between the cities in the project and works with other existing SCC1 Lighthouse projects through a number of measures, including learning workshops, event attendance, and clustering and storytelling workshops. The framework is laid out in D9.1: Framework for intra-project collaboration and the outcomes were and are detailed further 14
in the following reporting deliverables. In return we will reinforce other gears by working according to the open source principle: most knowledge developed is kept accessible to other projects. In the communication we also use channels of communication of the local cities (like the municipal website). To better integrate and possibly measure the reach and impact of these, we have to discuss the use of this data with the cities involved, in order to avoid privacy conflicts (GDPR) or data ownership issues. Details are coordinated with the ongoing task in WP11 on the Data Management Plan. With the concept of the gearbox we have a better understanding of the embedded position of +CityxChange and its unique selling points. One of the elements is that the project is focused on small and medium-sized cities. There are currently over 800 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the European Union. The majority of these, almost 700, are small and medium-sized cities (between 50,000 and 250,000 inhabitants). In general, the big cities have easier access to personnel and technical capacities to implement innovative solutions. However, this can be a major challenge in smaller cities. The lighthouse and follower cities of +CityxChange are all such cities. The +CityxChange project can therefore become a leading example for the majority of small and medium-sized cities in Europe.
5.2 Local involvement and contribution to project outcome The second element of the dissemination and exploitation strategy is the involvement of the local cities. All dissemination managers of the cities and the coordinator will be united in a roundtable. The roundtable has monthly video conferences. During the meetings the communicators will exchange strategies, examples, best practices, feedback, etc. The goal is to create a learning community which is inspired to develop, test and measure new ways of communication. The agenda for the first months (M3-M12) of this roundtable was:
1. To develop a local stakeholder map;
14 D9.1 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/framework-for-intra-project-collaboration/
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2. To write a description of the local case study in easy to understand texts and illustrations;
3. To translate the English leaflet in local language, thereby considering the meaning of keywords;
4. To list local means and channels for communication; 5. To compose a local press kit presenting the project; 6. To start publishing about the project on local channels.
While this was primarily achieved, it became evident that the pace of development varies significantly between the different cities. The two LHC are moving forward as expected, and further materials were developed for them, the FC are too early in the process and still have to build more foundational structures internally in order to initiate the projects effectively in their local environments. Catching up and ensuring that all cities are moving at a comparable pace was one of the main challenges of the second year. While progress has been made, further supported by newly hired staff members in most of the cities, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the crucial citizen engagement activities while taking up most of the municipal resources. However, at the time of the delivery of this document, many of these delays have been mostly compensated for and additionally, new directions and formats for engagement created. Despite that, ISOCARP has developed the main framework for communication (the communication plan, templates, leaflets, etc.). The leaflet is further developed into a press kit for each city in the local language, in order to reach as many citizens as possible. The front side has a general description of the project and the back side is tailor made for each city and will develop over time. Furthermore, project-wide information materials have been produced. This is further described in section 7.6. Through the various Demonstration Projects, +CityxChange analyses user patterns and behaviour (for both energy and mobility). This creates a deeper understanding of local habits and culture (later on resulting in practical recommendations). By choosing a playful way of communicating and learning (e.g., DP03 and DP05), the impact of communication is maximised, and it ensures that all actions are well embedded in the spatial, economic, technical, environmental and social context of the project. Therefore, the Demonstration Projects are one of the most important means of engagement and communication at the local city level. A framework for this was developed in D3.1: Framework for Bold City Vision, Guidelines and Incentive Schemes and has been expanded in D3.2: Delivery of the citizen 15
participation playbook , including information on communication. 16
15 D3.1 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/framework-for-bold-city-vision-guidelines- and-incentive-schemes/ 16 D3.2 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/delivery-of-the-citizen-participation-playbook/
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Fig. 9: Schematic setup of the demonstration projects, produced by +CityxChange
5.3 Communication round table & peer-system In the first months, monthly round table discussions were held to discuss communication-related issues. Due to the short time for each communication manager to discuss their progress and challenges, starting from M7 of the project, the format was adapted to alternating monthly Skype calls, with bi-monthly rotating focus groups. These were established which were supposed to lead to more in-depth exchange and discussion between the cities itself and ISOCARP as facilitator. Unfortunately, the participation rates during the summer were too low to have an effective process of this kind. Therefore, the format was changed back to general meetings. These, combined with bilateral calls and more topic-specific meetings allow for a more targeted and active discussion and will be continued as such for now.
5.4 Local Communication Strategies In order to consider and compile the individual characteristics, approaches and environments of the LHC and FC, the development of individual and city-specific communication strategies were proposed. This process was initiated by ISOCARP Institute and supported through the communication manager of each city. These include the more specific communication objectives, local stakeholder maps, local leaflets and press kits, communication channels, and other relevant information. The strategies did not evolve into full documents but are rather living compilations of files and approaches which are
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consistently updated. Below, two exemplary stakeholder maps show the approach of the two Lighthouse Cities.
Fig. 10: Stakeholder map Limerick, developed by LCCC
Fig. 11: Stakeholder map Trondheim, developed by Trondheim Kommune
5.5 Scientific dissemination The project results and solutions will be made available to the scientific community, policy makers and industry by using scientific channels such as scholarly journals, conferences, workshops, etc., apart from the existing Deliverables, which are also targeting a broad audience (and written in a readable, but detailed style), including the scientific community where applicable. Selected channels used within the +CityxChange project will be described below. For the time being, +CityxChange is the only SCC01 project led by a university; scientific quality and publications are highly relevant. While an Innovation Action provides limited budgets for scientific publication, the DoA specifies that +CityxChange will actively present project evaluation and experiences at a minimum of 5 peer-reviewed conferences and in 5 scientific journals, to support the validity of the innovation activities and demonstration
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projects and to promote development and exploitation of +CityxChange open innovation and cross-cutting issues (T9.1) in research. +CityxChange has defined a procedure for identifying, tracking and qualifying publications before they are published, including scientific quality and compliance with IP rights (see also D11.17 Updated Overall Consortium Plan 1 ). 17
The publication efforts are clustered in Task 10.5, and will mainly be the responsibility of the 2 universities involved in +CityxChange, UL and NTNU. However, it is an aim to publish not just Deliverables, whitepapers etc. with industry partners and cities, but also to extend this collaboration to the co-authoring of scientific articles. This approach is resulting in multiple jointly authored papers. The scientific dissemination strategy is defined broadly, as the project spans a wide number of disciplines and topics. We refrain from prescribing specific venues, but rather aim for the standard of excellence of the university partners, which is to target high quality venues and also participate in relevant other events and venues. Other results can take the form of white papers, contributions to guidelines and lessons learned, the final report, as well as joint publications with EU bodies and other SCC1 projects, such as the SCIS solution booklets for dissemination and replication. Expected scientific results will be clustered mainly around the 11 Demo Projects and the specific enabling innovations for them. The results of local deployment as well as overall guidelines and recommendations from the project are further topics. Around 10 papers are already published or in revision processes with further ones under development out of the first 2 years of the project. These mainly target early results, frameworks, and overall concepts. Further results are expected after the completion of Year 2 when WPs 1, 2, 3 are being finalised and respective Deliverables together with initial implementation results in WPs 4, 5, 6 can form the basis for further articles. Additional results are expected after the completion of the Year 3 deployments in the LHCs and adaptations and evaluations within the last 2 years. Details will be assessed in sessions between and within the universities to balance different requirements and balance efforts between Deliverables, whitepapers, and scientific articles and to also fit into partners’ own strategies. Publications will be made available under Open Access conditions (cf. D11.7, 11.16, ff.). Publication outcomes are tracked internally, reported to the EU Portal, and disseminated on the project website as a dedicated subsection of the knowledge base. 18
5.5.1 Targeted journals (selection) No complete list can be provided as the range of topics covered in the project are too broad. However, the following list of journals has been already used for publication or will be considered for upcoming publications.
17 Confidential, not available publicly. 18 Available at: https://cityxchange.eu/article-categories/research-outcomes/
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● International Journal of Sustainable Energy; ● Energy Informatics Journal; ● International Journal of Energy Sector Management ● Infrastructures; ● Sustainability; ● International Journal of Green Energy; ● Environment and Planning; ● Energy; ● Transactions on Information Systems; ● ISOCARP Review articles;
5.5.2 Targeted conferences / scientific events Conferences and scientific events where +CityxChange have been and will be present. The topics of the scientific events are also very diverse given the wide range of topics that the project covers. Certain events are targeted for scientific dissemination. These include conferences hosted by project partners, those facilitated or attended by the broader SCC01 network, by INEA/EC/EU etc. Others are based on topic considerations or existing venue choices by the participating partners, departments, and researchers.
5.5.3 Deliverables and projects outputs Most project deliverables are public. Many describe developed systems and frameworks and their application. Others are ongoing and regular reporting and far less relevant for the scientific community. A list of deliverables has been identified as potentially relevant for scientific dissemination and will be assessed for scope of publication and for standalone or combined articles. A rough target is to have at least one article per Demo Project .
No. Deliverable name
D7.1 Approach and Methodology for Monitoring and Evaluation
D7.2 Reporting to the SCIS system
D1.1 Report on the relationship model for the Integrated Modelling Platform
D2.1 Report on enabling regulatory mechanisms to trial innovation in cities
D3.1 Framework for Bold City Vision, Guidelines and Incentive Schemes
D2.2 Toolbox for design of DPEB including eMobility and distributed energy resources
D2.3 Report on the Flexibility Market
D2.4 Report on bankability of the demonstrated innovations
D4.1 Limerick DST (Integrated Modelling and Decision Support Tool) including training manuals/videos
D4.2 Limerick project documentation repository including project status reports 1
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D5.1 Trondheim project documentation repository including project status reports 1
D7.3 Data Collation, Management and Analysis Methodology Framework
D7.4 Monitoring and Evaluation Dashboard
D7.5 Data Collection and Management Guideline Reports 1
D9.6 CityxChange storytelling workshops, inviting other LHCs and FCs 1
D2.5 Seamless eMobility system including user interface
D3.2 Delivery of the citizen participation playbook
D3.3 Framework for Innovation Playgrounds
D2.6 Framework for community grid implementation
D1.2 Report on the architecture for the ICT ecosystem
D1.3 Report and catalogue on the ICT data integration and interoperability
D1.4 Demonstration of the +CityxChange Integrated Modeling Platform
D2.7 Local DPEB trading market demonstration tool
D3.4 Framework for DPEB learning and education
D3.5 Framework for a Positive Energy Champion network
D3.6 Framework for DPEB Innovation Labs
D4.3 Limerick Innovation Lab Solutions Catalogue 1
D4.4 Limerick DPEB Implementation Guide 1
D4.5 eMobility in Limerick DPEB Implementation Guide
D5.2 Trondheim DST including training manuals/videos
D5.3 Campus Microgrid Model Prototype
D5.13 Trondheim eMaaS Demonstration
D6.1 Established Baseline and DST for each FC
D9.11 CityxChange storytelling workshops, inviting other LHCs and FCs 2
D5.5 Energy Trading Market Demonstration
D4.7 Limerick 2050 Vision, Integrated Action Plan and Digital Guide
D4.8 Limerick Citizen Observatory
D4.9 White Paper “Regulations Unlocking Innovation Potential”
D4.10 Limerick Innovation Lab Solutions Catalogue 2
D4.11 Limerick DPEB Implementation Guide 2
D4.12 Community Grid Implementation Guide
D4.13 Limerick Energy Trading Market - Implementation Report
D4.14 Energy profile of Community Grid and EV users
D4.15 Limerick Energy Investment Models White Paper
D5.6 Trondheim Flexibility Market Deployment Report
D5.7 Trondheim 2050 Bold City Vision and Guidelines
D5.8 Trondheim Citizen Observatory
D5.9 Playbook of regulatory recommendations for enabling new energy systems
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D5.10 Trondheim Innovation Lab Solutions Catalogue
D5.11 Trondheim DPEB Demonstration
D5.16 Trondheim sustainable investment and business concepts and models
D6.2 Bold City Vision 2050 for each FC
D6.3 Technical feasibility study of the potential PEB replications in each FC
D8.1 Report on market and Stakeholder analysis
D9.16 CityxChange storytelling workshops, inviting other LHCs and FCs 3
D10.9 Plan for dissemination and exploitation of +CityxChange project results
D6.4 Report on Investment Pipelines and Novel Business Models for FCs
D7.14 Data Collection and Management Guideline Reports 4
D8.2 Report on the identification and assessment of exploitable results
D9.21 CityxChange storytelling workshops, inviting other LHCs and FCs 4
D6.5 Report on community participation and playground results
D8.3 Report on replication assessment and profiles for each +CityxChange demonstration project
D9.24 CityxChange storytelling workshops, inviting other LHCs and FCs 5
D8.6 Report on commercialisation plans for different solutions and markets
5.6 Tracking and monitoring of communication & dissemination activities A list of key performance indicators (KPI’s) were defined for the +CityxChange project. WP7 (Monitoring and Evaluation) develops a KPI framework for the LHCs, FCs, and solution providers. It is useful to include ways of tracking for communication here, as the outcome of communication is stakeholder involvement. Engagement is one of the core elements of the overarching model for DPEBs (+CityxChange 2018b, p. 11). Engagement has numerous goals; to inform about the project, to enthuse future end users, to test solutions with end users, to transfer knowledge. To better understand the impact, it is useful to measure the engagement (like the amount and type of people engaged with). The KPI framework is coordinated in WP7 by project partner Future Analytics Consulting. While these primarily discuss the broader KPIs of the project, additional indicators are crucial to track and elaborate the local and media-specific communication outreach over time. On the one hand, these individual parameters provide more detailed insights, while they also contribute to measuring the broader communication and dissemination success when aggregated Therefore, a system is being developed which counts the number of social media interactions, people reached through alternative media, engagements and participatory actions, the number of attendees to local events etc. The goal is to learn from
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the type of information collected in the LHCs at the current moment and build a system which takes into consideration the variety of communication channels and differences in capacity and approach in the different cities. Secondly there is a different level of expertise among the cities. It is important to develop a common understanding of what ‘success’ or ‘impact’ means for the local situation and the ongoing research. To give an example: a local city might publish a lot of articles on their municipal website, while it may have little impact because the target audience does not visit that website. This learning process will also benefit from the initial findings from the communication efforts as soon as they are initiated on a scale which allows comparability. Lastly, the cities have different ways of communicating and different channels. The metrics will therefore need to be customised for each city (+CityxChange 2018b, p. 20). Thereby it is also possible to include local parameters here (like number of visitors of a demo site). This addresses the goal of the project to have meaningful end-user engagement and to include urban prototyping and co-design (+CityxChange 2018b, p. 35) which reinforces the research outcome and validity for exploitation into other cities.
5.7 Phasing of the strategy during the project The project has multiple phases, starting with an internal start-up phase and developing into an operational phase with dissemination of the project results. Different phases mean that the goal of communication develops over time for different aspects of the project. While the overall project is still at stage one, the LHCs transitioned towards stages two to four. The Follower Cities are mainly active in the first two stages and simultaneously plan for stage three, mostly for the work on the Bold City Visions (T6.2).
Fig. 12: Strategy over time
1. To inform about the project Actions in the first phase like attending international conferences. Goal is to inform others about the project, establish the project in the research community, develop a network for future exploitation and dissemination.
2. Engage to inform Interaction at the local city level to establish the project, make it known, develop a local network.
3. Engage to collect Engage with stakeholders to collect input for the research, like the Bold City Vision, engagement, and learning.
4. Engage to validate Interaction to get feedback on proposed models, research outcomes. This is done both at the local level and in the broader community of practise
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5. Exploitation and knowledge transfer Capacity building at EU level to transfer the developed frameworks, dashboards and best practises to other cities.
6. Dissemination of results Wide dissemination at multiple levels of the outcomes.
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6 Organisation In order to execute the strategy, it is necessary to align the organisation with it. This chapter makes clear how that is achieved.
6.1 Organogram ISOCARP has a central role in communication. It facilitates and manages the external communication.
● Communication products are first discussed with partners/cities involved; ● The progress is reported to the project coordinator (PC) NTNU; ● The cities are united into a roundtable/learning community, which has monthly
video conferences; ● General communication by all partners is facilitated by ISOCARP in coordination with
WP11 and involved partners.
Fig. 13: Organisational diagram
This setup has numerous advantages: (1) All work developed in WP10 Communication is supervised by the work packages who are going to use the outcomes; WP8 Exploitation and WP9 Collaboration. (2) Both lighthouse cities are involved (in the roundtable and QA). (3) The team of Limerick consists of native speakers and can check language (4) NTNU is also project coordinator so keeps a good overview of the progress
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6.2 Quality assessment Internal quality control is important for the impact of the outcomes. For WP10 it is done in two steps:
1. First with the partners involved in the creation of the product, including all +CityxChange cities;
2. Quality Assessment (QA) is preliminarily done by a process including three members, Limerick (Lighthouse City and native speakers for proofreading), Trondheim (Lighthouse city), NTNU (project coordinator and WP9 Collaboration lead), while keeping all cities informed. The overall quality assurance plan for all Deliverables is set out in D11.2: Quality Assurance Plan . 19
19 Confidential, not available publicly.
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7 Means, Delivery method The previous sections covered the objectives, context analysis, strategy for communication and organisation. The strategy is executed by the means, which are described in this section.
7.1 Means related to the communication goals The communication activities of the +CityxChange project address different goals, depending on the stage of the project. In the beginning external events were used to inform others about the project and establish valuable connections for future use. Gradually, the focus advanced into more primary engagement in research, validation of the results (with, e.g., scientific papers), exploitation and wide dissemination of the outcomes.
Fig. 14: Shifting goals of the means
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7.2 Project website During the proposal phase a project website has been developed. The goal of the website is to function as the main gateway to the project. It is the first point of contact for many people who are interested in the project. The website is operated by WP leader ISOCARP. This includes an evaluation of the reach and impact, for example with Google Analytics. All partners contribute to the website by delivering content. Moreover, some of the municipalities involved in the project, now have their own pages for the project, expanding in this way the amount of content that is being produced related to the +CityxChange project. A list is provided below:
(1) Limerick, +CityxChange section: (https://www.limerick.ie/CityxChange) (2) Sestao, +CityxChange section: (http://www.sestaoberri.eus/tag/cityxchange/) (3) Trondheim, +CityxChange section:
(https://www.trondheim.kommune.no/aktuelt/utvalgt/andre-omrader/barekraft/cxc/) The official +CityxChange website is revised periodically. The central objective of the website is the provision of information about the project status, updates, and development over time to the general public as well as people and organisations working in related fields. It should support both information and replication efforts. Furthermore, it shall represent the project’s main objective of co-creating innovative urban solutions in a participatory and inclusive manner while emphasising the importance of open, public availability of the majority of outcomes and developments along the process. A specific importance lies on the broad coverage of different interest groups. It shall simultaneously be able to provide a general project understanding for the urban citizen, while also acting as an information portal for the professional fields of smart cities and the positive energy district/building sector and municipalities.
Fig. 15: Screenshot of the homepage
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In particular, the website shall represent most of the range of the overall project – ranging from governance in the project cities, the process-oriented elements of participation, co-creation, active citizen and private sector involvement, to the more technical elements which describe the specific solutions which are developed by the project partners in both the digital and physical environment. Therefore, a major challenge lies in the ability to provide a broad spectrum of information which is easily accessible while sustaining a clear structure and comprehensibility.
Fig. 16: Screenshot of Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Tool (www.mert.cityxchange.eu)
In response to the feedback of the first project review meeting, more interactive elements are planned for and prepared. These include KPI dashboards such as the MERT (Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Tool) which is already online but not publicly promoted yet, as well as 3D visualisations resulting from the work on Decision Support Systems (DST). The DST has been tested in Limerick already where the LCCC staff has received training on how to use the Integrated Modelling and Decision Support Tool (DST) in order to operate the tool their own purposes and use it to inform the development of the Bold City Vision and future development of the Limerick PEB and Positive Energy District. More information of the DST can be found in D4.1 Limerick DST (Integrated Modelling and Decision Support Tool) including training manuals/videos . However, the mapping and data organisation 20
work is still ongoing. Therefore, the extension of the interactive elements are anticipated for the third project year.
20 D4.1 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/d4-1-limerick-dst-integrated-modelling-and-decision-support-tool-including-training-manuals-videos/
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Fig. 17: Web interface of the DST for the example of Limerick
Individual systems are also going to be included not in the main project website, but into the specific websites the cities have made for the local project dissemination and activities. For example, Limerick has included a mapping app (as on of the solutions identified in D3.3 Framework for Innovation Playgrounds ) under its +CityxChange website. 21
21 D3.3 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/d3-3-framework-for-innovation-playgrounds/
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Fig. 18: Inclusion of a mapping tool into city project website (https://www.limerick.ie/cityxchange/se-cityxchange)
7.2.1 Targeted audience
The website aims at a variety of audiences, building upon the stakeholders derived from section 4.4. Building upon these and in order to operate the site according to the various needs, five user experiences are developed as guidance.
7.2.1.1 User experience 1: General public
One of the central target audiences is the general public – either from one of the LHC and FC or other EU cities or the broader public. Therefore, a strong focus will always be on easy comprehension and user-friendly content visualisation. For this target group, the general project information, as well as the city profiles and digestible technical representations are crucial.
7.2.1.2 User experience 2: Academia
The second user group of the website is the academic field. Therefore, another focus shall be on the provision of more detailed information on the executed demonstration projects, methods and tools. Another crucial element thereof is an easily browsable or searchable platform which incorporates project deliverables, technical content, as well as city-specific details. This will ensure that the +CityxChange project can be used as a information-provider for case studies and comparative analyses and contributes to the
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academic field of smart city research and the realisation and co-creation of positive energy districts and buildings, as well as participatory and citizen-centred urban governance approaches. Where possible, open research data will be linked, as described in the Data Management Plan (D11.5 and D11.7 ). 22 23
7.2.1.3 User experience 3: Public sector
The third group incorporates the public sector with a focus on administrations and local governments of secondary and tertiary cities in the European Union. In order to cater for their primary interest for information for the city-specific implementation, planning, Bold City Vision-creation as well as development of funding strategies, it is important to create meaningful and detailed, bilingual city-profiles, which combined with the replication profiles produced by the partner R2M, create a comprehensive overview of the actions and demo projects conducted in each of the project’s cities.
7.2.1.4 User experience 4: Private sector
Similar to the public sector, the private sector’s interests, mostly in the field of (green) technology development and energy management, shall be addressed by the project’s website. Therefore, it is important to provide a good overview of the cities’ and citizens’ needs, as well as the market potential and technical implementation of the demonstration projects. Furthermore, the monitoring and evaluation platform which will be created at a later stage and informs about the fulfillment of the project’s KPIs, has to be firmly integrated with a high priority on the accessibility and understandability of the data which is collected from the various cities.
7.2.1.5 User experience 5: EU-wide Smart City/H2020 community
Lastly, the intra-project and inter-project collaboration in the broader environment of EU H2020 projects (SCC1 and other Smart City topics), as well as the smart city field in general should receive special importance. Therefore, the open and easy accessibility of the public deliverables, as well as overall project context and objectives, combined with the impact and success monitoring are fundamental. Additional to the provision of information of the +CityxChange project on the website, links to relevant project and knowledge networks and databases shall be included into the framework of the website to enable cross-project exposure and interaction and facilitate meaningful cooperation and learning and exchange relationships. For this, a primary focus shall be further on the upcoming event calendar as well as tracking through the news database to enable regular professional exchange with related partners.
7.2.2 Audience Tracking & Analysis
A profile of the audience since the formal launch, as well as its behaviour is analysed through the use of analytical extensions. This analytical reporting is an update on numbers that have been extracted over the period November 2019 - September 2020. 60% of
22 D11.5 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/data-management-plan-initial-version/ 23 D11.7 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/data-management-plan-2/
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visitors speak English, while 13% speak Norwegian, 7% German, 3% Spanish and 3% Italian. While this only includes the primary language of the visitor’s settings, it shows the international outreach, as well as the benefit from having some parts of the website translated to local languages. Additionally, 20% of the visitors are from Norway, 19% from the US, 10% from Ireland, 6% from the Netherlands, 5% from Germany, 4% from Spain, 4% from Italy and 3% from the UK. This global outreach is further showcased in a world map showing the distribution (fig. 18). The development of the number of users is shown in the graph below (fig. 17). While it shows a slight decrease from February to May, a period when the world was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. It shows a slight increase in May, which has remained constant during the summer months, June and July. It shows a significant increase from August to September, months that quite a few activities have been happening within the project. Based on previous experience, numbers are expected to remain constant or to have a slight increase during the winter months due to events that are planned within the +CityxChange project, from our project partners and within the EU SCC projects.
Fig. 19. Screenshot of website analytics showing visitors and users over the period 11/2019 - 09/2020
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Fig. 20. Website analytics showing global distribution per country and user/visitor during period 11/2019 - 09/2020 Lastly, the majority of visitors come from organic search results, which highlights that the project website can be found and that people looking for related terms reach and visit the website. It shows further that 7.5 % of website visitors come from social media leads, which is anticipated to grow with an increasing number of social media followers.
Fig. 21. Website analytics showing entry point distribution of visitors
7.2.3 News on website Specific news articles are written on the website to inform different events which were attended, project outcomes, or to report on other related activities. The news are furthermore shared on social media and partly included in the project newsletter. Below is a list of the news articles from October 2019 to October 2020:
● Invitation - Action Cluster meeting and launch of the new EIP-SCC Initiative on Regulatory Frameworks (15 October 2020)
● Limerick City Engage Week 2 - Renewable Energy (12 October 2020)
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● Smart Cities celebrate the European Mobility Week with the hashtag #WeMoveSmart (9 September 2020)
● City Engage Week to focus on Local Renewable Energy in Limerick (1 September 2020)
● +CityxChange project solutions and frameworks in the EU Horizon 2020 Innovation Radars (11 August 2020)
● Re-Imagine Limerick’s Georgian Laneways: Green Museum II (23 July 2020) ● EUSEW 2020 Webinar: Creating a joint vision for Positive Energy Districts (8 July
2020) ● +CityxChange Projects unveiled to re-imagine Limerick’s Georgian Laneways (8 July
2020) ● +CityxChange Newsletter - July 2020 (1 July 2020) ● Celebrating Solidarity across EU Cities with #CityFromMyWindow (8 June 2020) ● SCIS Citizen Engagement Solution Booklet (12 May 2020) ● Workshop: Data driven energy services. How to engage consumers (4 May 2020) ● Struggling with the lockdown? A hashtag can help (16 April 2020) ● Join our challenge! #CityFromMyWindow (16 April 2020) ● Webinar on 27 May: Citizen participation playbook (13 March 2020) ● +CityxChange at WUF2020 (18 February 2020) ● Urban Prototyping in Georgian Limerick (13 February 2020) ● Public engagement: Do we really engage? (16 December 2020) ● Powerhouse Brattørkaia has been awarded project of the year by Project Norway
(20 November 2019) ● Co-Creation of Positive Energy Blocks (12 November 2019) ● +CityxChange Newsletter - November 2019 (6 November 2019) ● Trondheim and Limerick join the Climathon Wave 2019! (5 November 2019) ● Three new projects join the Smart Cities and Community Lighthouse projects (4
November 2019) ● +CityxChange Second Consortium Meeting, 23-25 October 2019, Limerick (4
November 2019) ● Exploring and sharing ways towards citizen-led energy transitions (25 October 2019)
7.2.4 Upcoming development
Over the coming months, the main extensions of the website will be an increasing number of events and news due to more project activities, the integration of the dashboard of the Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Tool (MERT), as well as more content in Knowledge Base, primarily more deliverables and the inclusion of the project glossary which is currently in development.
7.3 Social media The impact of the different social media channels has been analysed, across a large number of H2020 projects where ISOCARP coordinates communication. Conclusions are, among others:
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1. Twitter has the largest impact in terms of followers and interactions. The community mainly consists of experts/academics.
2. Facebook is second, the quality of the content varies, and the audience is mainly citizens.
3. LinkedIn is suitable for business related content but has a rather low number of followers.
4. Instagram has a high impact but requires image-based content. 5. The above channels cannot replace each other, they all address slightly different
audiences. Other channels have a marginal reach among the general public. The proposed strategy is to ‘stand on shoulders’ (see 5.1 Gearbox) and to use the existing communication channels of the cities (varying from Facebook pages to newspapers) to reach the citizens. For the practice and research community a Twitter account is a very effective way.
7.3.1 Twitter The Twitter channel has been in active use since April 2018. The impact of the different channels is measured over time and it is possible to add channels when more research results become available.
Fig. 22: +CityxChange Twitter account 24
Our impact and presence in twitter has been constantly growing. The two graphs below (fig. 21) show both, the number of tweet impressions per month and the number of followers per month. The Covid-19 crises had an impact on our social media account, especially during the lockdown, where most municipalities had to stop some of their project activities, resulting in less activities to be communicated to our social media audience. Our twitter
24 +CityxChange Twitter account: https://twitter.com/plusCities
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account actively follows and interacts with other accounts of project partners, other SCC1 projects, and European institutions, as well as other related and relevant accounts.
Fig. 23: +CityxChange twitter account analytics (left: period 11.19-09.20; right: period 11.2019-09.20)
7.3.2 YouTube A YouTube channel has been set-up and includes all kinds of videos and animations 25
developed over the project span. The channel is listed in the SCC01 Communication and Dissemination Task Group document to allow for inclusion in “The Smart Cities Channel” 26
and cross-linking of the videos of different projects. Furthermore, webinars organised as part of the project work and the further dissemination of project deliverables are made available through the YouTube channel.
Fig. 24: +CityxChange YouTube account showing all videos that have been uploaded
25 +CityxChange YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmlplsLkDtYzFQEhLnZXRvg?view_as=subscriber 26 Available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChPCzf64phTFphlX9jR3XbA/playlists
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Fig. 25: +CityxChange YouTube account showing all videos which are in our playlist
7.4 Newsletters Digital newsletters are produced to keep the network informed of the project and its outcomes. The newsletter features events, case studies (descriptions of the local cities), research results and other relevant news provided by third parties. Five newsletters have been distributed throughout the entire project period so far. They are distributed in our newsletter subscribers network, the ISOCARP network of city and regional planners, through the Dissemination and Communication task group of all SCC01 projects and various social media channels. So far, this has led to an audience increase to 291 subscribers.An overview of the sent newsletters can be found in the archive on the website: https://cityxchange.eu/newsletter-archive/
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Fig. 26: Excerpt of the fourth+CityxChange newsletter
7.5 Materials To ease the access and updated overview of materials created, a living document is set up in the internal project environment to assist consortium partners in finding relevant information as well as information about its storage location, formats, and last update. Fig. 23 shows a screenshot thereof, while the following subsections highlight the most important ones.
Fig. 27: Excerpt of developed material and infographics overview for internal purposes
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7.5.1 Leaflets (city-specific and extended) During the first months of the project leaflet was developed for each participating city. The front cover contains general information about the +CityxChange project. The back cover has information about the local city project. The cities translated the leaflets in local language to increase the reach and impact. The first version was finalised in M6 and grew until M12 into a complete press kit (D10.7: Press kits about the project for each city ). 27
The leaflets – both general and city-specific – have been designed to capture the 28 29
attention of different target groups. In a graphical way, they explain the rationale behind the project – its vision, cities involved in the project, project implementation activities and project demonstration sites in each city. However, the produced leaflets are a preliminary set of information materials and are regularly updated. The leaflets consist of two different types. The first one focuses on the general information and visualises the project’s context, goals, and locations. It includes information on the main cities which are part of the project and a graphical representation of the project vision of +CityxChange.
The second group of leaflets is a collection of seven different leaflets – one for each city – displaying on the front page again the overall vision of the project. On the back, a description of the specific project environment of the city, as well as a map of the project site at the current stage of planning is shown. For effective local communication, the city-specific leaflets are translated into the respective local languages of the LHCs and FCs. 30
27 D10.7 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/press-kits/ 28 Available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/project-leaflet/ 29 Available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/city-leaflet-english/ 30 Translated leaflets available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/city-leaflet-local-languages/
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Fig. 28: Front (left) and back (right) of first edition of general project leaflets
Fig. 29: Front (left) and back (right) of first edition of city-specific project leaflets (example of Trondheim)
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7.5.2 Animation Several animations have been produced in order to make project related concepts easily digestible for the larger audience. The first animation was produced by NTNU to showcase the key ingredients of the PED/PEB development process. It is featured on the homepage of the website, as well as the project YouTube channel.
Fig. 30: Animation explaining PED/PEB development process (produced by NTNU) 31
The second animation has been produced by our Lighthouse city, Trondheim and explains what the idea of an energy positive city means for Trondheim. What exactly is energy and how will Trondheim get Europe to use new and smart solutions so we use less electricity than we make?
Fig. 31: Animation explaining the positive energy city, Trondheim 32
31 Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cibXP-1-nLw&feature=emb_logo 32 Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbDdU3JPWjg&feature=emb_logo
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7.5.3 Other materials Despite the above shown materials, project-wide materials such as roll-ups, banners, and business cards are developed and used for events, exhibitions or fairs. Additionally, the cities and partners create further city-specific materials which are centrally collected for potential reuse or adaptation by other partners and cities.
7.6 Supporting Tools Despite direct public materials, a range of internal documents and tools are being created to support the communication and dissemination efforts.
7.6.1 Visual identity The WP leader ISOCARP has developed a visual identity for +CityxChange, based upon the project logo, initial identity, and graphics package that was developed by Trondheim Kommune with NTNU and the Consortium in the proposal phase. The brand identity comprises a logo, colour palette, fonts, etc.
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Fig. 32: Excerpt from the visual identity document ISOCARP is responsible for implementation of the brand identity. All partners will receive a shortened version with communication guidelines and the visual identity is available through the internal shared file space of the project and other means.
7.6.2 Templates
Fig. 33: Templates Both a Word and PowerPoint-template has been developed to ensure a uniform outreach and are part of D10.2: Consortium Identity and Templates. Due to the project operating mainly in the GoogleDrive environment, the templates were extended to according templates which are used primarily for the development of deliverables and internal reports.
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7.6.3 Infographics In a similar manner as the overview of communication materials, an online overview document was created, showing all infographics, their content, etc. (fig. 30). This document is crucial to keep an overview over what was created as part of different WP and tasks to avoid duplicated work and consistency.
Fig. 34: Excerpts from infographic overview for internal use
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7.6.4 Glossary As described in a previous section, a variety of terms is used across the project. The variety in itself, the span of knowledge fields, combined with the frequent use of abbreviations, the different project languages and technical aspects, the terms complicate effective and clear communication within the project (primarily for newly joining colleagues) and even more so when addressing the general public. Therefore, different attempts were made in the beginning of the projects to define them clearly. However, these were mainly done inside different WP and specific to the respective needs. Further, it became evident that for many terms no consistent definition could be found yet by all project partners. Therefore, the different efforts were compiled and discussed further in a dedicated workshop during the first consortium meeting. The goal was to reach a list of all terms which require definition which was achieved. These were mostly complemented with a detailed technical definition, as well as a citizen-friendly definition. The work has been continued by SE and UL as part of the Next Generation Smart Citizen learning framework (to be submitted in M24 as well). Where appropriate, visual icons or infographics are produced to further showcase their meaning. In the future, a translation to the local languages might be advisable for some of the terms to allow for a consistent communication across the project. The definitions and further information will be made available to the public in the Knowledge Base of the project website.
7.6.5 Outreach, partnerships & media channels Since February 2019 a list of media channels was composed by all the partners of the consortium. Additional to the various channels, it includes international networks of practitioners to disseminate the project process and outcomes. It was formally delivered in M6 and is expanded over the project span. In addition to fostering the dissemination of the achieved results and ongoing +CityxChange activities, the focus is on reinforcing partnerships with EU-wide media outlets and organisations linked to the objectives and project field. These include among others European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), JPI Urban Europe, EUROCITIES, ICLEI, EUKN, Greencities. The combined use thereof increases the impact of the project's dissemination activities. At the same time, they are seen as a means to distribute promotional materials and tailored messages for each communication campaign to the members in their network. Instead of aiming at solely one-directional communication streams, the utilisation of these platforms shall also generate interest and awareness in the broader community and subsequently lead to increased external feedback, support, and exposure. The targeted international and local media channels are collected in a working document and will be continuously extended over the course of the project. Building new and utilising existing partnerships is a crucial element to reach the right audiences, increase exposure, and assist the project’s results and findings to have a broader impact outside the project environment, while simultaneously leading to potential benefits of the demonstration project in LHC and FC itself. Therefore, another goal is
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enabling possibilities for partnerships or collaborations of LHC and FC with national, regional, and international city networks and sectoral alliances. Additional to city networks, a range of existing partnerships will be used and strengthened over the span of the project. These include among others the lead partner of dissemination and exploitation ISOCARP (WP10) and connected initiatives, e.g., UN-Habitat’s Planners for Climate Action (P4CA) and OECD’s, UN-Habitat’s and Cities Alliance’s National Urban Policy Programme (NUPP). Furthermore, the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), JPI Urban Europe, and relevant EU Horizon 2020 platforms, such as Smart Cities Information System (SCIS) and Smart Cities and Communities (SCC01) environment, in which +CityxChange is situated, are crucial for the international communication strategies. E.g., the mailing list and regular calls of the Dissemination and Communication task group of all SCC01 projects is used to communicate major outcomes and announcements. ISOCARP’s network of over 800 planners and urban policy makers is activated for a broad outreach and result dissemination to generate interest of city officials, international expert feedback, e.g., in case of online participatory platforms and to create international input and quality assurance. Furthermore, the international environment shall support the replication and awareness of Positive Energy Districts outside the project environment. Additional to the individual and institutional members of ISOCARP, established partnerships and connections such as P4CA (constituted of organisations with over 80,000 members) and the NUPP will further increase the dissemination impact and outreach of +CityChange. Furthermore, the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) – the largest energy research community in Europe – is a crucial international initiative which aims at improved coordination of existing energy research to foster more efficient and cheaper low carbon energy technologies. EERA brings together more than 50,000 experts, as well as around 250 research centres and universities in 30 countries. Additionally, EERA has a variety of Joint Programmes (JP), most relevant for +CityxChange, the EERA JP Smart Cities which is headed by the +CityxChange project coordinator Annemie Wyckmans (NTNU). Also operating in the EU-environment, JPI Urban Europe represents another relevant partner (platform). During the first project’s Learning and Storytelling workshop, which was organised preceding a JPI Urban Europe event with a focus on Positive Energy Districts (PED), various content-related overlaps became prevalent, while the vision of JPI’s future focus on PED, e.g., through establishing PED-focused city networks highlighted further potential. Lastly, +CityxChange operates in an active and broad environment of other EU H2020 projects and has direct links to several of them (e.g., SCIS, projects of SCC-01, the joint board of coordinators, and its Communication task group). While these partnerships already exist and are linked to the project, they must be used in the most effective way to learn from other projects, communicate the experiences and results of +CityxChange, as well as foster more intense partnerships between the several consortiums and partners.
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7.6.5.1 International Media
● Covenant of Mayors ● Eurocities ● ICLEI ● EUKN ● Greencities ● LE:NOTRE ● URBACT ● Blauwe kamer ● Stedenbouw ● TOPOS magazine ● Gebiedsontwikkeling.nu ● Monu ● Energy cities ● CIVITAS ● INTERACT ● European Council of Spatial Planners ● Royal Town Planning Institute ● Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors ● Marine Energy biz ● Renewable Energy World ● Wave&TidalEnergyNetwork ● AESOP European Schools ● Council of Europe ● Council of cities and regions in Europe ● Eurogi - European Geographic Information Community ● UNECE Smart Cities ● Arquia Foundation
7.6.5.2 Local Media
Trondheim ● Trondheim Kommune (website) ● Trondheim Kommune (Facebook) ● Trondheim Kommune (Twitter page) ● Trondheim 2030 (website) ● Trondheim 2030 (Facebook page) ● Trondheim SmartBy (Google site)
Limerick
● An Taisce (platform) ● Irish Times (newspaper) ● Limerick Leader (newspaper) ● Limerick Post (newspaper)
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● Limerick.ie (official council page) Písek
● Smart Pisek (platform) Alba Iulia
● Alba Iulia Smart City (network) ● Alba Iulia Municipality (website) ● Alba Iulia Municipality (Facebook page) ● Alba Iulia Smart City (Twitter page) ● Alba Iulia Smart City (LinkedIn page) ● Europe Direct Alba Iulia (Facebook page) ● Viziteaza Alba Iulia Official Blog (blog)
Smolyan
● Smolyan Municipality (website) ● Община Смолян (Facebook page) ● Smolyan Bgvesti (TV channel) ● 24 Smolian (website)
Sestao
● El Correo (newspaper) ● Ensestao (newspaper) ● Sestao City Council (website) ● Sestao City Council (Facebook page) ● Sestao City Council (Twitter page) ● Sestao Berri (website) ● Sestao Berri (Facebook page) ● Sestao Berri (Twitter page) ● El Mundo del Pais Vasco (newspaper) ● Agencia Colpisa (platform) ● Agencia Europa Press (platform) ● Radio Popular Bilbao (radio) ● EITB Radio Euskadi Bilbao (radio) ● COPE Bilbao (radio) ● Punto Radio Bilbao (radio) ● Telebilbao (TV channel)
Partner Channels
● OV Group (Officinae Verdi) (blog) ● OV Group (Twitter page)
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● OV Group (LinkedIn page) ● OV Group (Facebook page) ● OV Group (Youtube channel)
Partnerships
● JPI Urban Europe (knowledge hub) ● European Energy Research Alliance (research network) ● ISOCARP (society of planners) ● Democratic Cities (conference) ● Metadecidim community (community) ● Consul Project (participation project)
7.6.6 Press Corner Press kits of the project, developed as part of D10.7: Press kits about the project for each city 33
, are easily accessible for reporters and other audiences through the +CityxChange website, in a separate section labelled as the ‘Press Corner’. A link to the section is included in the menu of the website. The Press Corner is structured in a way that can give the media an idea of the ‘who, what and where’ of +CityxChange project.
General information on the project's main points can be deducted from the general website and material. Specific questions can be answered through the FAQ section. Furthermore, in order to get more information for each city specifically and its contact points, the reader will be redirected to the city-specific sections. A general overview on the dissemination material that has been produced so far can be found through the press releases and the downloadable package.
A city-specific press kit, translated into the local language, is developed for each city as a separate package. Journalists, reporters and other concerned parties can obtain through the city specific profiles on our website or by contacting the respective contact point. The package will mainly contain downloadable material such as the editable presentation, the general press release, city specific logos, frequently asked questions (FAQs), etc.
33 D10.7 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/press-kits/
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Fig. 35: Screenshot from press corner on project website The press corner also showcases the coverage in international and national news. An excerpt of this list is shown below:
● Community Led Open Innovation (Limerick.ie, July 16, 2020) ● EUSEW 2020 – WEBINAR: Creating a Joint Vision for PEDs – Recap (SCIS, July 3, 2020) ● Innovation Atelier Bilbao celebra su primer workshop con ciudades Lighthouse y
Fellow (Cluster Energy, June 26, 2020) ● From nearly-Zero to Plus Energy Buildings (Buildup.eu, June 10,2020) ● FAC Co-Authors New Placemaking Publication (Future Analytics, June 8, 2020) ● Limerick - Positive Energy Block (IES, May 21, 2020) ● La ciudad noruega de Trondheim usará la tecnología IOTA para abordar los retos de
los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible La ciudad noruega de Trondheim usará la tecnología IOTA para abordar los retos de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible(eSmartcities.es, February 13, 2020)
● Sestao Berri, presente en el stand de AVS Euskadi en la VIII Feria Berdeago Energy (sestaoberri.eus, February 11, 2020)
● Open Call: Innovative Citizen Solutions for Positive Energy Transition and Limerick's Georgian laneways (Limerick City Council, January 22, 2020)
● Limerick Council’s Georgian Living City scheme gets award nod (Limerick Leader, January 14, 2020)
● ABB demonstrerer banebrytende plussbyløsninger i Trondheim (ABB, December 5, 2019)
● The First Limerick Climathon (Medium.com, November 12, 2019) ● IOTA Becoming Part Of Self-Sustaining Smart Cities (IOTA, October 24, 2019)
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● Developers community update: IOTA & +CityxChange (IOTA, October 22, 2019)
7.6.7 Continuous public relations work and tracking There will be continuous outreach work by WP10 and the partners, aligned with principles laid out in this document. To document the outreach and impact in media, alongside own activities, WP10 set up a mechanism for tracking media outreach and presentations as a living document. This will lead to a final collection in D10.12: Publications in local media and professional media (M60).
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8 Other Activities
8.1 Learning Workshops
The second +CxC Learning Workshop was originally planned to take place in March 2020 in Follower City Písek, with corresponding study visits, knowledge exchange and discussions. Due to COVID-19, the workshop was moved to digital format instead, and distributed across a series of Learning Sessions which took place in Spring 2020. This is described in more detail in D9.7 Report on Intra-Project Collaboration, Including Study Visits and Peer to Peer Workshops 3 . 34
The Learning Sessions aim to support the Follower Cities in their development of Positive Energy Blocks, including a wide range of topics such as how to work with building owners, how to engage with regulatory authorities, how to attract relevant innovation and start-up companies to collaborate, how to secure the necessary investments from public and private sources, how to identify RES for their respective PEBs in a manner that can be scaled up and replicated, and so forth; in short, how to organise and structure the process of developing a Positive Energy Block. The topics of the learning sessions are developed during the monthly Executive Board meetings as well as dedicated meetings with and among the Follower Cities.
The Learning Sessions are open to all project partners, and provide a good arena for documenting the processes that take place in the project, including local experiences that might be difficult to extract into written guidance documents. The sessions support the alignment of expectations among partners, Tasks and Work Packages, in an informal manner. While this alignment formally takes place within the Technical and Executive Boards (among WP Leads and Cities, respectively), we see that subtle differences in collaboration cultures, communication routines and internal quality assurance procedures, amongst others, come to light more easily in informal discussions, enabling us to make them explicit and take them into account in the continuation of the project.
The outcomes of the learning sessions are fed back into the project towards guidance documents (WP7) and Follower City feasibility studies (WP6). In addition, they are used as input towards the development of SCIS Solutions Booklets in cooperation with selected other SCC01 projects.
34 D9.7 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/d9-7-report-on-intra-project-collaboration-including-study-visits-and-peer-to-peer-workshops-3/
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8.2 Climathons +CityxChange will organise at least 9 Climathons (2 per LHC, 1 per FC) during the project period, to engage with local start-ups, citizens and other stakeholders. They are an important means to reach local stakeholders. Where possible, cities aim to participate in the Climathon yearly events. Climathons are part of the global Climate-KIC network and answer specific climatic challenges a city is facing. Participants share and develop their ideas during a 24-hour challenge. A jury of local and project stakeholders will select the most promising ideas. The Climathons are linked to the Innovation Playground framework developed and implemented in the LHCs and FCs through WP10. The first two climathons were organised simultaneously in both LHC and took place during/after the first consortium meeting in Limerick. For the second year, climathons are in preparation. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and the related limitations of in-person meetings as well as uncertainty of changes result in no clear situation of the possibilities in 2020. Either, the events will be online, or they might be postponed to a later point.
8.3 Master classes Using the outcomes from the project, NTNU (Trondheim) and UL (Limerick) will organise a minimum of two master classes at their institutions to ensure dissemination and transfer of knowledge to the academic and industrial communities; participation will open to academics in other institutions and industry professionals. In addition, NTNU contributes with an ‘Experts in Team’ course for Master students. In the bigger picture of communication the master classes are a means to address the target audience of the student and continuing education community and fulfil education ambitions. The organisation of master classes is ongoing on both academic institutions and will continue during the course of the project as well as feed into other ongoing educational activities.
8.4 Storytelling Workshops Ten Storytelling workshops are organised as part of the WP9 activities. The primary goal is the exchange of “trial-and-error experiences on how to create robust support among local politicians and stakeholders, create justifiable impacts, manage complex projects across divergent interests, goals, and needs, build targeted networks locally and internationally, support capacity and assess strengths and weaknesses, mobilise demonstration and research partners, develop Intellectual Property (IPR) agreements, distribute responsibilities, create an appropriate storyline, vision and profile for their city, and arrange successful partner workshops between LHCs and FCs. Lastly, the workshops will build at a later stage on the replication profiles which are created as part of Task 8.1: Replication Assessment of +CityxChange solutions. In the beginning, the workshops primarily focus on the elements and justification of stories. At a later stage, the bi-directional character of storytelling as a support tool for fostering collaboration and co-creation will be in a stronger focus. In the final phase of the project, the current outlook of the storytelling workshop planning suggests a focus on the transmedia storytelling as a tool of sharing the gained experience and knowledge as part of disseminating the project to the public, other projects,
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and the academic and private sector, as well as guaranteeing local and regional societal and political support. The workshops shall raise the awareness and sensibility towards the opportunities and potential, as well as providing practical guidelines, approaches and techniques to integrate storytelling in the respective local communication, dissemination and citizen engagement strategies. The results and progress of the storytelling workshops is annually reported in the deliverables +CityxChange storytelling workshops, inviting other LHCs and FCs 1-5 (D9.6/M12 , D9.11/M24 , D9.16/M36, D9.21/M48, D9.26/M60). 35 36
8.5 International conferences, papers and scientific articles The scientific community is further reached by conference presentations, papers and scientific articles (see also section 5.5). +CityxChange will actively present project evaluation and experiences at a minimum of 5 peer-reviewed conferences and in 5 scientific journals, to support the validity of the innovation activities and demonstration projects and to promote development and exploitation of +CityxChange’s open innovation and cross-cutting issues (Task 9.1: Intra-Project LHC and FC Cooperation) in research. This is described in more detail in D9.2 and D9.4 with the latest updates in D9.7 Report on 37 38
Intra-Project Collaboration including Study Visits and Peer-to-Peer Workshops 3 39
As part of Task 10.5: +CityxChange Masterclasses, Publications and Presentations, scientific publications from partners, especially the universities are developed. The project uses an internal publication process to ensure relevant IP protection (D11.1 Overall Consortium Plan and respective Updates ) and aims to make all publications available under Open Access 40
conditions (D11.5: Data Management Plan (Initial Version) and respective updates). 41
Publications including metadata are added to the Knowledge Base on the Website, and 42
are disseminated through the respective partner processes and the scientific community. Furthermore, representatives of the project are frequently attending international meetings, workshops and conferences, as well as city and industry events. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, most of the events that were scheduled for 2020, have been moved to an online format. While we see the strong importance of face-to-face interaction and exchange and try to return to it once possible, we embrace the advantages of the virtual realm. For example, more participants from each partner can participate, recordings can be used and/or published afterwards, as well as more regular check-ins organised. The
35 D9.6 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/storytelling-report-1/ 36 D9.11 will be available after submission at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/ 37 D9.2 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/report-on-intra-project-collaboration-including-study-visits-and-peer-to-peer-workshops/ 38 D9.4 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/d9-4-report-on-intra-project-collaboration-including-study-visits-and-peer-to-peer-workshops-pending-approval/ 39 D9.7 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/d9-7-report-on-intra-project-collaboration-including-study-visits-and-peer-to-peer-workshops-3/ 40 Confidential, not publicly available. 41 D11.5 available at: https://cityxchange.eu/knowledge-base/data-management-plan-initial-version/ 42 Research outcomes available at: https://cityxchange.eu/article-categories/research-outcomes/
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approach we follow for the online events is to ensure that workshop and meeting types are adapted accordingly (e.g. more breaks) and more attention is paid to everyone being able to speak up, as well as more interactive formats by utilising survey and whiteboard tools. Our consortium meeting and learning workshops where project cities and partners share information and knowledge have been adapted to an online format, with several learning workshops spanning over a longer period. The list of virtual meetings is only a selection among all the events that our consortium partners have participated in. Furthermore, some events are also presented and described in detail in our News Section on our website. An excerpt of the list of attended international events is shown below. In person meetings ( November 2019 - February 2020):
● Smart City Expo World Congress (19-21 November 2019, Barcelona) ● Berdeago - Basque Sustainability Fair (31 January-02 February 2020, Berdeago,
Spain) ● World Urban Forum (8-13 February 2020, Abu Dhabi, UAE)
Virtual meetings, selection (March 2020 - October 2020)
● Webinar: Bold City Vision Framework in Practice (24 April 2020) ● Workshop: Regulations and possibilities for PED replication (06 May 2020) ● PED Talk: The European Reference Framework on Positive Energy Districts and
Neighbourhoods (08 May 2020) ● Investment Workshop (12 May 2020) ● Learning session: Pathways to PEBs - Võru, Sestao and Smolyan (14 May 2020) ● Learning session: Pathways to PEBs - Pisek, Alba Iulia (15 May 2020) ● Webinar: +CityxChange Citizen Participation Playbook - A roadmap to meaningful
engagement (27 May 2020) ● EIP-SCC Online Matchmaking (15-17 June 2020) ● EU Sustainable Energy Week 2020: How to make smart city projects bankable in
times of COVID 19? (30 June 2020) ● EU Sustainable Energy Week 2020: Creating a joined vision for PEDs (30 June 2020) ● ISOCARP Cyber Agora: Virtual public planning participation - Hype or new normal?
(14 July 2020) ● General Assembly, EIP-SCC (02-03 September 2020, hybrid event, online/Brno,
Czech Republic) ● City Engage Week - Local renewable energy, Limerick (14-18 September 2020) ● Nordic Edge Expo 2020 (23 September 2020, hybrid event, Stavanger, Norway) ● Sustainable Places 2020 (27-30 October 2020)
A record of all activities is kept in a shared online sheet. The goal/strategy of attendance will vary during the project and for different aspects:
1. present the project, inform, connect with future dissemination partners 2. engage, involve, gather input for the ongoing research 3. test the solutions, validate research
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4. transfer knowledge, exploitation 5. dissemination of results
Another important delivery method is the ISOCARP network of urban and regional planners, which has members in more than 85 countries. Continuous programs, like the Young Professional Planners program (YPP) and the Urban Planning Advisory Teams (UPATs) are set up for knowledge transfer across the globe; further strengthened by the activities of the research spin-off – ISOCARP Institute – which concentrated on global training and capacity building, research facilitation, and support of urban practices.
8.6 The Final Project Report and Final Project Event The Final Project Report and Final Project Event embody the last phase; the wide dissemination of results across all demonstrations and cities in the project. By then the project will have positioned itself as forerunner and prime example for many small and medium sized cities. The research frameworks have been tested and the results are disseminated at national, EU and global levels. In addition, the annual ISOCARP World Planning Congress (2018 Bodø/Norway, 2019 Jakarta/Indonesia, 2020 virtual, 2021 Doha/Qatar, 2022 Brussels/Belgium…) contributes to the dissemination across the globe. Later versions of the communication plan (M36, 48) will include a more detailed setup of the final report and final project event.
8.7 Other activities which include engagement and communication The project includes activities which are not primary means of communication, but which include engagement of stakeholders. For these activities, communication is very important and they are therefore part of the communication strategy. WP10 leader ISOCARP will frequently contact the task leaders to ensure alignment with the communication strategy:
1. To embed the project in the community of practice, the gearbox; 2. the local involvement to contribute to the research (engage, interact, test, etc.); 3. disaggregated indicators to measure the output.
Included are the following activities. These will be followed up with the individual task leaders for better alignment
● D3.3: Framework for DPEB learning and education (T3.3) [M24] ● D3.4: Framework for a Positive Energy Champion network (T3.4) [M24] ● D3.5: Framework for DPEB Innovation Labs (T3.5) [M24] ● D4.2: Limerick 2050 Bold City Vision and Guidelines [M36] ● D4.3: Limerick Citizen Observatory [M30] ● D5.2: +Trondheim 2050 Bold City Vision and Guidelines [M36] ● D5.3: +Trondheim Citizen Observatory [M36]
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● D6.2: Bold City Vision 2050 for each FC [M36] ● D6.3: Report on community participation and playground results [M54] ● D8.2: Report on ‘get involved’ workshops and facilitation of replication across 20 EU
cities [M60] ● D8.3: Report on market and Stakeholder analysis [M36] ● D8.4: Report on the identification and assessment of exploitable results [M48] ● D8.5: Report on IPR protection plans, agreements and exploitation plans [M54] ● D8.6: Report on commercialisation plans for different solutions and markets [M60] ● D9.7: +CityxChange storytelling workshops, inviting other LHCs and FCs [M24, M36,
M48, M54]
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9 Conclusion This document showed the outline of the communication goals; the context in which they have to be implemented; the strategy, how to do that; the organisation and finally the means by which the goals are addressed. The communication will address both local audiences and stakeholders in the +CityxChange cities and the broader community of practise, research, governance. This includes (networks of) cities, professionals and academics and the European stage. The strategy formulated includes three elements:
● Gearbox for embedment into the wider community of practice. This is how the project will address the broader community of practise.
● Local involvement. This is about communication at city level and the contribution of engagement to the research project. The cities will form a roundtable or learning community to exchange best practises.
● Tracking and monitoring communication efforts. This is to measure the reach and impact of engagement and communication.
The outreach will change over time, first to inform, then to engage to collect and validate, then knowledge transfer and finally dissemination of project results. As communication is integrated into multiple work packages, a wide scope of means is used as a delivery method. As the other work packages develop further, the communication strategy will be refined. This integrated effort will maximise the engagement at local city level, the exploitation to other cities and the wide dissemination across the EU.
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10 References European Commission (2015). Actions towards implementing the Integrated SET Plan.
Retrieved from https://setis.ec.europa.eu/actions-towards-implementing- integrated-set-plan [Accessed 20 October 2019].
European Commission (2016). Communication from the Commission to the European
Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, and the European Investment Bank: Accelerating Clean Energy Innovation. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/ files/documents/1_en_act_part1_v6_0.pdf [Accessed 20 October 2019].
European Commission (2017). Smart Cities and Communities. Retrieved from
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/lc-sc3-scc-1-2018-2019-2020 [Accessed 20 October 2019].
+CityxChange (2018a). Annex 1 (part A): Innovation Action. +CityxChange (2018b). Annex 1 (part B): Positive City ExChange – +CityxChange.
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