Introduction

Based on the research conducted in Phase 1 of the ASToN project, we were able to assess the digital maturity of the cities in the network. More detail about each individual city is found in the city profiles in Chapter 3.

The research consisted of in-country visits, interviews, workshops, responses to a questionnaire, and desk-based research. Work to understand digital maturity and ecosystems can quickly become out of date, and often the statistics and numbers don’t fully uncover the more human elements of government work and digital transformation. As such, we prioritised design and qualitative research over quantitative data.

In this section we review the different definitions of smart city given by the cities in the network, and plot the cities against the characteristics of digital maturity at both the local authority level and the level of the territory.

By plotting the cities we were able to see some key areas of interest, which should not be considered as scientific but rather indicative of the level of maturity in the network. From this, we are able to highlight the strengths in the network, as well as understand the areas in which there are shared learning needs and urban policy challenges.