This book gathers contributions to the 3rd International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Developments (SLERD 2018), held at Aalborg University, Denmark on 23–25 May 2018. What characterizes smart learning ecosystems? What is their role in city and regional development and innovation? How can we promote citizen engagement in smart learning ecosystems? These are some of the questions addressed at SLERD 2018 and documented in these proceedings, which include a diverse range of papers intended to help understand, conceive, and promote innovative human-centric design and development methods, education/training practices, informal social learning, and citizen-driven policies. The papers elaborate on the notion of smart learning ecosystems, assess the relation of smart learning ecosystems with their physical surroundings, and identify new resources for smart learning. SLERD 2018 contributes to foster the social innovation sectors, ICT and economic development and deployment strategies, as well as new policies for smarter, more proactive citizens. As such, these proceedings are relevant for researchers and policymakers alike.

This book presents papers from the 5th International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development, which promotes discussions on R&D work, policies, case studies, entrepreneur experiences, with a particular focus on understanding the relevance of smart learning ecosystems for regional development and social innovation, and how the effectiveness of the relation of citizens and smart ecosystems can be boosted. The book explores how technology-mediated instruments can foster citizens’ engagement with learning ecosystems and territories, providing insights into innovative human-centric design and development models/techniques, education/training practices, informal social learning, innovative citizen-driven policies, and technology-mediated experiences and their impact. As such, it will inspire the social innovation sectors and ICT, as well as economic development and deployment strategies and new policies for smarter proactive citizens.

This book provides insights on skills required to achieve success in smart cities from a variety of industry and human factors perspectives. It emphasizes the balance between learning skills, technical skills, and domain-specific skills in these industries, with special emphasis given to innovative software development models. The authors note that digital transformation requires complementary measures that are not overtly aimed to support infrastructure investment but are instead directed at promoting entrepreneurship, improving digital skills, engaging citizens, applying new transformation strategies, and developing innovative software. All of the above are considered strategically important, especially for medium-sized cities since that enable them to be more competitive in the global economy.

The book includes high-quality papers presented at the 4th International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development at Università Roma Tor Vergata, Italy, from 22 to 24 May, 2019. Providing insights into the relevance of smart learning ecosystems (schools, campuses, the workplace, informal learning contexts, etc.) for regional development and social innovation, it also discusses how citizens’ involvement with smart ecosystems can be increased and made more effective.

This book offers a unique and timely contribution, informed by responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, to unpack the intertwined challenges that planning needs to cope with in the future. It argues that the pandemic and post-pandemic periods, in their successive waves of restrictions and social distancing, have disrupted ‘normal’ practices but have also contributed to shaping a ‘new normal’. The new normal is emerging, re-configuring, and prioritizing the substantive objects of planning and its governance and participatory processes. This book discusses this shift and presents a collection of episodes and cases from diverse European urban contexts to develop a new vocabulary for describing and addressing challenges, models, perspectives, and imaginaries that contribute to defining the new normal. The book is aimed at scholars interested in urban planning, sociology, geography, anthropology, art, economy, technology studies, design studies, and political science.

Coping with complexities is an everyday reality for private, public and third sectors that face intricate, overlapping, obscuring and ever-changing challenges. Developments in technology and systems of value creation are driving a new need to understand, facilitate and manage complexity. The book proposes design and design research as a solution to respond to the complexities associated with the intensifying and rapid changes in societies, technological fields and environments. A four-step design process for managing complexities is introduced in the four parts of this book, spanning from design research in the field to practice-based contexts. This publication collates high-level research and the latest scholarship on this topic, while many of the case studies described herein draw on rich experiences and applications in practice. The ways designers work to overcome complexities through design, and the methods and frameworks presented in the chapters, provide critical insights and form an important scholarly contribution in this subject area.

This open access book is about public open spaces, about people, and about the relationship between them and the role of technology in this relationship. It is about different approaches, methods, empirical studies, and concerns about a phenomenon that is increasingly being in the centre of sciences and strategies – the penetration of digital technologies in the urban space. As the main outcome of the CyberParks Project, this book aims at fostering the understanding about the current and future interactions of the nexus people, public spaces and technology. It addresses a wide range of challenges and multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging phenomena related to the penetration of technology in people’s lifestyles - affecting therefore the whole society, and with this, the production and use of public spaces. Cyberparks coined the term cyberpark to describe the mediated public space, that emerging type of urban spaces where nature and cybertechnologies blend together to generate hybrid experiences and enhance quality of life.