Dresden University of Technology presented its latest research and the ‘ Smart ’ – ‘City ’ – scientific network at the IPSC Conference 2026
How can cities and regions be designed in such a way that they not only respond to demographic, social and digital upheavals, but also actively shape the future? This was the question addressed at the 2nd ‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Smart City ’ (IPSC) conference on 21 and 22 May 2026 in Kaiserslautern.
The WISSENSARCHITEKTUR research group (TU Dresden), which leads the ‘Smart ’ City Research within the Dresden model project Smart City Dresden , presented several papers on impact orientation, knowledge transfer and the scaling of innovative Smart-City solutions. In addition, the network’s director, Prof. Jörg Rainer Noennig, together with Jens Libbe and Karoline Krenn (German Institute for Urban Studies), presented the ‘Smart ’ –City – research network, founded in 2025, to a broad specialist audience.
The ‘ Smart ’ –City – research network currently brings together experts from around 50 universities, higher education institutions, non-university research organisations and local authorities. It is a consortium that emerged from the ‘ Smart Cities’ pilot project, which aims to effectively combine scientific findings with practical urban development.
At the IPSC conference, which was co-organised by the ‘ Smart ’ – ‘City ’ – scientific network in cooperation with the hosts RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), the researchers discussed the network’s objectives and potential with the plenary audience. A memorandum, which is being updated, brings together key ideas and possible activities.
During the thematic sessions, the WISSENSARCHITEKTUR team contributed their experiences from the Dresden pilot project to the technical discussions. In their presentation ‘From Vision to Impact’, Dr Paul Stadelhofer, Nadine Reinhardt and Prof. Noennig outlined a consensus-, innovation- and process-oriented model for impact orientation and impact analysis of Smart-City-measures. Using participatory methods, indicators based on guideline documents, and a transparent and manageable system of data collection and evaluation, complex innovation processes in cities can be systematically aligned with and assessed for their social and strategic impacts
CityNoennig and Stadelhofer, together with Benjamin Dally (HCU Hamburg) and Mirko de Paoli (Federal Association for the Promotion of Innovation and Knowledge Transfer in Cities and Regions [ Smart ]), identifiedthe “key aspects of a sustainable transfer model”. How can obstacles be overcome that stand in the way of the adoption and use of innovative SmartCity solutions? Drawing on successful examples such as the Hamburg-based ‘Micado’ app, which supports migrants during their arrival and integration process in a new city, key questions and conditions for success were identified. The approach advocates early integration and consideration of four aspects: the end-user perspective, routine operation, continuous development, and the business and operational model.
The Thuringian town of Ilmenau also served as an example of a successful transfer. Under the motto ‘Smart City ’ (Transition from ‘We’ to ‘We’ – from our own initiative), WISSENSARCHITEKTUR was commissioned in 2024 to implement, in a scaled-down form and without funding, the process of developing a ‘ Smart ’ – ‘City ’ strategy carried out in Dresden. Zohra Ng Binti Abdullah, Filipe Mello Rose and Jörg Rainer Noennig described their experiences of jointly developing a strategic guidance document (Replication rather than roll-out? Scaling down as a strategy for transferring Smart City innovations).
In addition to the academic presentations, the conference featured interactive sessions. In a World Café session, the ‘ Smart ’ –City – research network provided information about the planned Summer School 2026 at Dresden. In addition, the network organised a moderated matchmaking session as well as a so-called ‘proposal pipeline’, designed to help researchers identify common funding topics and opportunities for collaboration. The programme was complemented by an open BarCamp (“Bring your ideas”), which provided a space for new project ideas, spontaneous discussions and the development of future research initiatives.
Further information on IPSC 2026 is available on the conference website and in the press release.