Michele Ferretti

Project Title:  Building the Smart City: Managing the interface between urban governance and big data.

Partner Organisation: IBM's Smarter Urban Dynamics (IBM-SUD) group

Project Description: Smart Cities are premised on digital systems able to provide large amounts of real-time data to urban governments and agencies. However, such ‘big data’ only becomes useful to urban managers when it can be analysed and interpreted, and an appropriate policy response developed. In partnership with IBM, this project investigates how city governments can develop governance interfaces that enable them to make efficient and targeted use of the data received through smart systems, focusing on Big Data for the real-time management of public transport, using as case studies cities where IBM has worked to develop responsive real-time Smart City management systems, and seeking to establish the foundations for an interdisciplinary dialogue between technical bodies of research on Smart City systems and applications, and social science approaches to sustainable urban governance. The project is intended to generate impact both in terms of empirical findings and analysis, and in terms of a broader theoretical contribution at the interface of literatures on technical urban management and social science-based urban governance approaches.

Michele is also a member of the Urban Futures research group at King's College, London