Collaboration for Innovation Between Universities and Smart Cities

Cities are facing regularly changing societal and infrastructural needs because of multiple reasons like a growing population, new ways of life and new societal needs, climate change, or digitalization. Often, changing needs and boundary conditions show a much higher dynamic than city administrations can cope with. The development of long-term strategies and concepts for smart cities and their implementation can, thus, be facilitated by integrating knowledge and competences available at innovative research institutions, like universities. Recent studies suggest that universities may take a leading role in supporting smart city projects. Nevertheless, a clear procedural approach of the knowledge transfer between universities and smart cities has not been described or tested, yet. To address this research gap, this paper will present a reference model, which can be used as a guideline. Traditionally, the role of universities is described by its missions to teach, to conduct research and to share new findings with its stakeholders. While concepts like the ‘Quintuple Helix’ and ‘Third Mission’ try to describe the role of universities as key players in innovation projects, only few studies describe their role specifically for smart city projects. Therefore, this article will propose a structured, procedural approach for collaboration and knowledge transfer between universities and smart cities with an adaptive reference model. Due to its flexible architecture, the adaptive reference model facilitates efficient and effective knowledge transfer between universities and external partners, in this case with the stakeholders involved in smart city projects.