URENIO
The URBAN AND REGIONAL INNOVATION Research Unit (URENIO) is a University Lab in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. URENIO is a non-profit research organization that started its operation in 1995.
Research Focus
The initial research focus of URENIO concerned the technological development of cities and regions and their ability to create environments supporting R&D, human skills, and innovation. Interest in the contribution of technological innovation to urban and regional development peaked after 1980 by economic geography research on industrial districts of central Italy, new industrial spaces in the west coast of the USA, and the planning of large technopoles in Japan. These new forms of agglomeration brought on the surface a series of phenomena with major impact on urban and regional development, such as the geographical concentration of innovative activities, the role of R&D and innovation in competitiveness and growth, the drivers of innovative agglomerations, the new divides and uneveness in terms of knowledge and innovation. Since then, technology and innovation have been a standard point of reference in the development and planning of cities and regions.
The current research emphasis, however, is on intelligent cities and regions. Intelligent cities are advanced environments of innovation, combining innovative clusters, technology learning institutions, and digital innovation spaces. Intelligent cities constitute a discrete category of intelligent environments created by the agglomeration of creativities, smaller systems of innovation that operate within cities (technology districts, technology parks, innovation poles, innovative clusters), and digital networks and online services. Their added value lies in their ability to bring together three forms of intelligence: the human intelligence of the city’s population, the collective intelligence of institutions supporting learning and innovation, and the artificial intelligence of digital networks and online services for innovation.
Under this theme, a series of research objects may be defined such as:
- The development and planning of innovative clusters; their internal dynamics; the planning processes and models of technolopes, technology and science parks;
- The rise of innovative agglomerations and regional systems of innovation; the management of these systems through regional innovation strategies; the globalization of innovation networks and systems; and
- The creation of virtual innovation environments, which offer a series of online tools and technologies facilitating innovation, new product development, and technology transfer.
Academic Activities
Academic activities of URENIO focus on undergraduate and post-graduate teaching on urban development, learning regions, and digital cities. Recent post-graduate activities include:
- The annual post-graduate seminar 'Intelligent cities: Systems and environments of innovation';
- The Portal on 'Innovation, Innovation Environments, Intelligent Cities and Regions', which gathers information, papers, reports, and news available on the Internet on these fields;
- The creation of a series of educational platforms facilitating the design of intelligent cities.
Accomplishments
URENIO is mainly known for its research record in the field of ‘regional innovation’ (TII Innovation Journal[1]); research carried out in the Lab is acknowledged by leading organizations in this field (CORDIS[2], IMProve[3]; Observatory Pascal[4]); it is among the few academic organizations promoting research in the field of intelligent cities (Intelligent Cities Networks[5]) having introduced the concept of intelligent cities as physico-virtual territorial systems of innovation, and most advanced innovative agglomerations. The website of URENIO offers a permanent watch on global research and planning activities related to environments of innovation and intelligent cities (ALEXA - 9th place on most visited sites in all 'Education' categories(Alexa [6]).
URENIO has also developed a series of digital spaces and tools that facilitate the design and development of virtual innovation environments and intelligent cities, including the 'Platforms for Intelligent Cities'; 'Online Benchmarking' for companies, communities, and regions; and other 'Virtual Environments for Innovation.