IRIS - Integrated and Replicable Solutions for Co-Creation in Sustainable Cities

The IRIS project tests new urban development solutions in the areas of energy, mobility and ICT. The basic idea is that cities would learn from a lighthouse city and could reproduce the solutions to other areas. The City of Vaasa is leading an entity that focuses on replicating and disseminating solutions, not only to the participating cities but also to the rest of Europe.

The IRIS project focuses on five entities: energy-positive areas, smart energy management and smart e-mobility, innovation platform for digital cities, citizen involvement, and co-creation. It is important to develop business models and technological innovations for sustainable development, as well as the opportunity to implement and disseminate the solutions developed within the project.

The Lighthouse Cities of the project are Utrecht (the Netherlands, project coordinator), Gothenburg (Sweden) and Nice Côte d’Azur (France); the Follower Cities are Vaasa (Finland), Alexandroupolis (Greece), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain) and Focsani (Romania). In addition, each city has expert organisations such as universities, research institutes and companies as their project partners. The City of Vaasa network includes Technology Centre Merinova and the University of Vaasa. In total, there are 43 operators from 7 countries.