Encouraging Stakeholder Collaboration for Smart City Innovation

Smart cities are one of the key areas in which innovation will make a significant contribution to implementing system transformation towards sustainability. Smart cites are based on advanced systems of hardware and software for mutual exchanges of energy and information between supply and demand sides. They require effective integration of a variety of science and technological knowledge through collaborating with various stakeholders in academia, industry, and the public sector. Therefore, innovation systems of smart cities exhibit a significant degree of diversity in knowledge, actors, and institutions. In this paper, we examine the innovation system of smart cities in Japan and its implications for system transformation towards sustainability. Bibliometric analysis of scientific and project documents in Japan reveal that knowledge domains basically concern renewable energy, energy storage, community energy management, and applications for home appliances and electric vehicles. Network analysis of actors suggests a concentrated structure dominated by large actors, particularly government organizations and electric and electronic companies. Policies and regulations influencing the innovation system for system transformation include economic incentives to promote new technologies, liberalization of markets for new entrants, iterated processes of road-mapping on key technologies, localization of demonstration projects reflecting specificities, standard setting for component technologies, and platform creation for stakeholder partnerships including academia, industry, government, and end users. Policy and institutional measures for facilitating communication and engagement with end users would be particularly important for implementing innovation.