CALL FOR PAPERS - Workshop and Special Section Articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change

Mapping the breath of Smart City Governance post-Covid-19: Critical Reflections on the Long-Term Impact of Digitalisation on Our Lives

Workshop and Special Section Articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change

Convenors: Araz Taeihagh and Martin de Jong

National University of Singapore and Erasmus University Rotterdam

Workshop and Special Section Organisers

Araz Taeihagh, Email, Website1 Website2 
Policy Systems Group, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Interests: governance of technology; transport policy; technology policy; public policy; socio-technical systems; policy design, analysis, and analytics; sustainable development; smart cities, energy, and environment, policy learning and transfer; risk

Martin De Jong, Email, Website 
Erasmus Initiative for Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity (DoIP), Rotterdam School of Management & Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Institute for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai
Interests: inclusive urban development; city branding; inclusive capitalism; corporate governance; public governance; policy transfer

 


Workshop and Special Section Focus

Over the past decade, the concept of “Smart City” with an emphasis on economic development, use of ICT and provision of engineering solutions has skyrocketed [1-5]. Amidst the increased competition among cities for businesses and talent, regardless of city-size, state of development, or socio-cultural context, local and national governments worldwide have launched Smart City initiatives. These initiatives often are driven by a focus on smart infrastructure provision through the use of connected devices and sensors for data collection, transmission through the internet, and the use of data mining and artificial intelligence to allow for better decision making and interaction among the devices in domains such as transportation, electricity distribution, health, and community development [6-10].

Scholars have argued that this strong emphasis on connectivity as the main source of growth in smart cities is shifting the focus away from traditional environmental concerns of the predecessor “sustainable city” concept towards more focus on infrastructure and use of information to increase economic efficiency, raising concerns over neglecting social and environmental issues [11-13].

A key consideration should be the understanding of the impact of rapid adoption of various digital technologies under the smart city umbrella on the society as a whole and finding ways to address their risks and unintended consequences, which can cause safety, liability, privacy, security, environmental, discrimination, and social inclusion concerns among others [14-20]. Moreover, with the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, smart cities and digitalisation are seen as a means to increase emergency preparedness and emergency responses to the virus, which has resulted in the more rapid adoption of digitalisation and further highlights the importance of the study of the issues at hand [21-23]. Since the onset of this health crisis and its socio-economic consequences have made it clear that its impact will not fade any time soon, it is a serious possibility that COVID-19 and its successors will have a lasting impact on our society and daily operations, and these will be intimately and permanently interwoven with digitisation and smart governance. 

What are the long-term effects of the rapid and extensive adoption of digitisation in smart cities? Whereas a previous Special Issue in Technological Forecasting and Social Change published in May 2019 ‘Understanding Smart Cities: Innovation ecosystems, technological advancements, and societal challenges’ appeared before the outbreak of the epidemic and highlighted issues such as the contribution smart technologies could make to sustainable urban development, boosting local innovation climates and accommodating active urbanite citizenship, the air of the times anno 2022 appears to have changed significantly. 

Globally both the application of and scepticism (if not outright fear among some) towards smart technologies digesting massive amounts of data to guide, regulate, and move people in directions desired by public authorities and private sector giants have increased. What have the experiences so far been with various relevant technologies deployed? How can and should various relevant technologies be trusted and used responsibly? What policies, regulations, legislation, standards, certificates, and auditing mechanisms can and should be developed to benefit from smart city developments while protecting the citizens and negating legitimate concerns over risks and unintended consequences of artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, internet of things, platforms, virtual reality, augmented reality, blockchains, 3D printing and smart health solutions to name but a few? How has COVID-19 changed plans for the adoption and long-term rolling out of these technologies? How concerned should we be about the ‘dark sides’ of smart cities when it comes to the behavioural opportunities urbanites are left within the face of large organisations armed with high-power technologies? Do they become smart citizens, or are they outsmarted by forces beyond their control? Can we distinguish between different societal groups in the way they are able to participate or excluded from using smart technologies? 

In this workshop and limited special section articles, building on the previous TFSC special issue on Smart Cities in 2019, we will examine broader impacts of smart cities post COVID-19. We will explore issues such as risks and unintended consequences, stakeholder impacts, changes to spatial planning because of COVID-19, as well as the dark side of smart cities, which can stem from the increasing power of tech giants and their impact on urban governance, surveillance capitalism, and differentiated participation or exclusion of various societal groups in smart cities and their inclusiveness). In this Special Collection, we invite scholars to contribute articles that examine the long-term impact of digitisation on smart city governance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak and explore the practical and normative aspects that local and national governments should address when dealing with it, as well as exploring the dark side of the smart cities. Key issues to be covered in the workshop include:

  • The broader risks and impacts of rapid adoption of emerging and/or disruptive technologies in smart cities, such as critical examination of the hypes, realities and impacts of the adoption of AI and Big Data on civil liberties and inclusiveness.

  • The opportunities and challenges underlying smart city development and the role of the different levels of the government and broader epistemic community in adopting various technologies as part of smart cities (e.g. through knowledge transfer, policy mobility and learning).

  • The impact of digitisation and Smart City development on various aspects of inclusive urban development and challenges governments face when ensuring access to digital technologies among vulnerable and uninitiated groups

  • The increased role of tech companies in Smart city development and the consequences of their increased influence over policy and regulatory development

  • The existence of various business models for governing smart city development and their relative impact on the inclusiveness of public governance and services in terms of democracy, equity and diversity

  • The appropriateness of different regulatory and governance approaches to address the risks of various technologies deployed in smart city initiatives

  • The role of emerging tools and initiatives in the governance of smart cities and their impact on aspects of broad societal inclusion (living labs, digital tools, regulatory sandboxes, integrated development plans)

  • The role of policy design and handling of capability and capacity challenges in ensuring the quality and sustainability of smart city initiatives

It is these questions that the workshop and a collection of articles in the special section of  Technological Forecasting and Social Change aims to address. Araz Taeihagh (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, National University of Singapore) and Martin de Jong (Rotterdam School of Management and Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam) invite their peers worldwide to contribute high-quality articles on these pertinent topics for the workshop and selection of a limited number of articles for the special section of TFSC. 

Araz Taeihagh
Martin de Jong
Guest Editors

  

Keywords

·       Artificial Intelligence

·       Autonomous systems

·       Big Data

·       Built environment

·       COVID-19

·       Digital inclusion

·       Governance of technology

·       Inclusion and inclusive development

·       Infrastructure systems

·       Intelligent systems

·       Internet of Things

·       Machine Learning

·       Policy capacity

·       Policy design

·       Policy learning, mobility and transfer

·       Risk Governance

·       Regulation and governance

·       Restriction of behavioural options

  • Smart City

  • Surveillance capitalism

Important dates for the workshop participation and special section selection process:

  • Expression of interest (extended abstract and outline, approximately 2000 words): 15 May 2022

  • Notification of shortlisted abstracts for full submission to workshop presentation: 15 June 2022

  • Submission of the full draft: 15 Oct 2022

  • Hybrid Workshop for full submissions: Mid-Nov 2020

  • Notification of selected presentations/draft for SI: Mid-Dec 2022

  • Submission of the revised papers to the SI editors post-workshop: Late Jan 2023

  • The internal review process by the SI editors: On a rolling basis from Jan 2023

  • Submission to the collection to the journal after approval by SI editors: April 2023

  • Accepted papers will be published online immediately once accepted.

 

Submission Guidelines:

Kindly submit the extended abstract and outline to govemergingtech@gmail.com by 15 May 2022 with the subject line [TFSC Extended Abstract]

Papers shortlisted for the workshop will be notified by 15 June 2022.

 Final paper submissions should follow the general author guidelines of Technological Forecasting and Social Change, which are available at https://www.elsevier.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change/0040-1625/guide-for-authors .

References

[1]       De Jong M, Joss S, Schraven D, Zhan C, Weijnen M. Sustainable–smart–resilient–low carbon–eco–knowledge cities; making sense of a multitude of concepts promoting sustainable urbanisation. Journal of Cleaner production 2015;109:25-38.

[2]       Fu Y, Zhang X. Trajectory of urban sustainability concepts: A 35-year bibliometric analysis. Cities 2017;60:113-23.

[3]       Mora L, Deakin M, Zhang X, Batty M, de Jong M, Santi P, et al. Assembling sustainable smart city transitions: An interdisciplinary theoretical perspective. Taylor & Francis; 2021.

[4]       Noori N, Hoppe T, de Jong M. Classifying pathways for smart city development: comparing design, governance and implementation in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. Sustainability 2020;12(10):4030.

[5]       Schraven D, Joss S, De Jong M. Past, present, future: Engagement with sustainable urban development through 35 city labels in the scientific literature 1990–2019. Journal of Cleaner production 2021;292:125924.

[6]       Tan SY, Taeihagh A. Smart City Governance in Developing Countries: A Systematic Literature Review. Sustainability 2020;12(3):899.

[7]       Allam Z, Dhunny ZA. On big data, artificial intelligence and smart cities. Cities 2019;89:80-91.

[8]       Angelidou M. Smart cities: A conjuncture of four forces. Cities 2015;47:95-106.

[9]       Bifulco F, Tregua M, Amitrano CC, D’Auria A. ICT and sustainability in smart cities management. International Journal of Public Sector Management 2016;29(2):132-47.

[10]     Chong M, Habib A, Evangelopoulos N, Park HW. Dynamic capabilities of a smart city: An innovative approach to discovering urban problems and solutions. Government Information Quarterly 2018;35(4):682-92.

[11]     Allam Z. Contextualising the smart city for sustainability and inclusivity. New Design Ideas 2018;2(2):124-7.

[12]     Kummitha RKR, Crutzen N. How do we understand smart cities? An evolutionary perspective. Cities 2017;67:43-52.

[13]     Wiig A. The empty rhetoric of the smart city: from digital inclusion to economic promotion in Philadelphia. Urban Geography 2016;37(4):535-53.

[14]     Taeihagh A, Ramesh M, Howlett M. Assessing the regulatory challenges of emerging disruptive technologies. Regulation & Governance 2021.

[15]     Lim HSM, Taeihagh A. Algorithmic decision-making in AVs: Understanding ethical and technical concerns for smart cities. Sustainability 2019;11(20):5791.

[16]     Lee JY, Woods O, Kong L. Towards more inclusive smart cities: Reconciling the divergent realities of data and discourse at the margins. Geography Compass 2020;14(9).

[17]     Taeihagh A. Governance of artificial intelligence. Policy and Society 2021:1-21.

[18]     Tan SY, Taeihagh A. Adaptive governance of autonomous vehicles: Accelerating the adoption of disruptive technologies in Singapore. Government Information Quarterly 2021;38(2):101546.

[19]     Taeihagh A, Lim HSM. Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks. Transport Reviews 2019;39(1):103-28.

[20]     Tan SY, Taeihagh A, Tripathi A. Tensions and antagonistic interactions of risks and ethics of using robotics and autonomous systems in long-term care. Technological forecasting and social change 2021;167:120686.

[21]     Sharifi A, Khavarian-Garmsir AR, Kummitha RKR. Contributions of Smart City Solutions and Technologies to Resilience against the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Literature Review. Sustainability 2021;13(14):8018.

[22]     Das D, Zhang J. Pandemic in a smart city: Singapore’s COVID-19 management through technology & society. Urban Geography 2021;42(3):408-16.

[23]     Allam Z, Jones DS. Future (post-COVID) digital, smart and sustainable cities in the wake of 6G: Digital twins, immersive realities and new urban economies. Land Use Policy 2021;101.

CALL FOR PAPERS - Research Workshop on (Re) Imagining Policy Tools: New Directions in Theory and Practice

                                                                     

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Research Workshop on

(Re) Imagining Policy Tools: New Directions in Theory and Practice

Yonsei University Seoul

March 15-16, 2019

 

Convenors:

 M Ramesh and Araz Taeihagh, National University of Singapore,

Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University, Canada,

M. Jae Moon, Yonsei University, Korea

 

The recent proliferation of interest in policy design years has reignited interest in the analysis of policy tools. Not only are new tools and new tool hybrids such as nudging and co-production being (re)discovered and new areas of application of old tools being found, such as crowd-sourcing and co-design, but older tools are also being used in new contexts, such as advisory commissions and information provision. It is time to survey and compare these developments and (re)contextualize them within the existing literature on substantive and procedural policy instruments and policy design. 

The workshop will address and provide information on topics including:  

1.             The extent of “newness” of policy tools like nudges and crowd-sourcing vis a vismoretraditional tools like information provision and public participation;

2.             The nature and uses of “procedural tools” in general and their role in contemporary policy designs;

3.             Issues around “policy mixes”,  including those related their nature as well as issues concerning their evolution and processes such as sequencing, layering, stretching and patching;

4.             “Tool calibrations” in all their various dimensions, including their design implications and how they affect policy change;

5.             The nature of the “mechanisms” that tools activate in order to affect target behaviour: that is, better understanding why tools actually 'work' and why they are complied with;

6.             Empirical evidence on administrator, public and political behaviour around choices of policy tools; 

7.             The nature of tool’ “volatility” or the likelihood and ease with which a tool or mix can be gamed/violated by targets or implementors and its design implications;

8.             The relationship between tools and “platforms”: that is, specific kinds of ‘meta-tools’which are open-ended and multi-functional and provide the foundation for the use of other more directed tools.

Proposals from all disciplines, approaches and perspectives are welcome, so long as they shed new light on critical aspects of policy tools. Novelty, creativity, and rigour will be the main criteria for selecting proposals.High quality papers will be selected for publication as a special issue in an international journal, to be identified after proposals have been reviewed. 

A limited number of travel grants to cover the cost of economy-class travel and accommodation will be provided. 

Please send proposals (500 words) along with authors’ names, institutional affiliations, Email, and list of relevant publications to IlJoo Park at policytool2019@gmail.com no later than November 30, 2018.

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