Anna Visvizi

Irregular migratory flows: Towards an ICTs’ enabled integrated framework for resilient urban systems

Purpose n n n n nThe purpose of this study is to navigate the challenges irregular migratory flows generate for cities and urban systems. The migration and refugee crises that challenged Europe in 2015-2016 revealed that the developed world cities and urban areas are largely unprepared to address challenges that irregular migratory flows generate. This paper queries the smart and resilient cities’ debates, respectively, to highlight that migration-related challenges and opportunities have not been explicitly addressed in those deliberations. This creates a disconnect between what these debates promise and what cities/urban systems increasingly need to address on a daily basis. Subsequently, a way of bridging that disconnect is proposed and its policy-making implications discussed. n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nTo suggest ways of navigating irregular migration-inflicted challenges cities/urban areas face, a nexus between the smart cities and resilient cities’ debates is established. By placing advanced sophisticated information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the heart of the analysis, a novel dynamic ICTs’ enabled integrated framework for resilient urban systems is developed. The framework’s dynamics is defined by two hierarchically interconnected levers, i.e. that of ICTs and that of policy-design and policy-making. Drawing from qualitative analysis and process tracing, the cross-section of policy design and policy-making geared towards the most efficient and ethically sensitive use of sophisticated ICTs is queried. Subsequently, options available to cities/urban systems are discussed. n n n n nFindings n n n n nThe ICTs’ enabled integrated framework for resilient urban systems integrates the effectiveness of migrants and refugees’ policy design and policy-making in human-centred thinking, planning and policy-design for resilient urban systems. It places resilient approaches in the spotlight of research and policy-making, naming them the most effective methods for promoting a humanistic smart cities and resilient urban systems vision. It highlights critical junctions that urban systems’ stakeholders must consider if the promise of emerging sophisticated ICTs is to be employed effectively for the entire society, including its most vulnerable members. n n n n nResearch limitations/implications n n n n nFirst, when designing ICTs’ enabled integrated resilient urban systems, the key stakeholders involved in the policy-design and policy-making process, including local, national and regional authorities, must employ a holistic view to the urban systems seen through the lens of hard and soft concerns as well as considerations expressed by the receiving and incoming populations. Second, the third-sector representatives, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other actors, need to be seen as peers in integrated humanistic networks, thereby contributing critical, unbiased knowledge flows to infrastructures, which promote fair and inclusive participation of migrants and refugees in local economies. n n n n nPractical implications n n n n nThe ICTs’ enabled integrated framework for resilient urban systems promotes a humanistic smart cities’ and resilient urban systems’ vision. It suggests how to design and implement policies apt to meet the needs of both receiving and incoming populations along value chains specific to smart and resilient cities. It promotes emerging sophisticated ICTs as the subtle, yet key, enabler of data ecosystems and customized services capable of responding to critical societal needs of the receiving and the incoming populations. In addition, the framework suggests options, alternatives and strategies for urban systems’ stakeholders, including the authorities, businesses, NGOs, inhabitants and ICTs’ providers and vendors. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nThe value added of this paper is three-fold. At the conceptual level, by bringing together the smart cities and resilient cities debates, and incorporating sophisticated ICTs in the analysis, it makes a case for their usefulness for cities/urban areas in light of challenges these cities/urban areas confront each day. At the empirical level, this analysis maps the key challenges that cities and their stakeholders face in context of migratory flows and highlights their dual nature. At the policy-making level, this study makes a case for a sound set of policies and actions that boost effective use of ICTs beyond the smart technology hype.

Rescaling and refocusing smart cities research: from mega cities to smart villages

The purpose of this paper is to rethink the focus of the smart cities debate and to open it to policymaking and strategy considerations. To this end, the origins of what is termed normative bias in smart cities research are identified and a case made for a holistic, scalable and human-centred smart cities research agenda. Applicable across the micro, mezzo and macro levels of the context in which smart cities develop, this research agenda remains sensitive to the limitations and enablers inherent in these contexts. Policymaking and strategy consideration are incorporated in the agenda this paper advances, thus creating the prospect of bridging the normative and the empirical in smart cities research.,This paper queries the smart cities debate and, by reference to megacities research, argues that the smart city remains an overly normatively laden concept frequently discussed in separation from the broader socio-political and economic contexts in which it is embedded. By focusing on what is termed the normative bias of smart cities research, this paper introduces the nested clusters model. By advocating the inclusion of policymaking and strategy considerations in the smart cities debate, a case is made for a holistic, scalable and human-centred smart cities agenda focused, on the one hand, on individuals and citizens inhabiting smart cities and, on the other hand, on interdependencies that unfold between a given smart city and the context in which it is embedded.,This paper delineates the research focus and scope of the megacities and smart cities debates respectively. It locates the origins of normative bias inherent in smart cities research and, by making a case for holistic, scalable and human-centred smart cities research, suggests ways of bypassing that bias. It is argued that smart cities research has the potential of contributing to research on megacities (smart megacities and clusters), cities (smart cities) and villages (smart villages). The notions of policymaking and strategy, and ultimately of governance, are brought into the spotlight. Against this backdrop, it is argued that smart cities research needs to be based on real tangible experiences of individuals inhabiting rural and urban space and that it also needs to mirror and feed into policy-design and policymaking processes.,The paper stresses the need to explore the question of how the specific contexts in which cities/urban areas are located influence those cities/urban areas’ growth and development strategies. It also postulates new avenues of inter and multidisciplinary research geared toward building bridges between the normative and the empirical in the smart cities debate. More research is needed to advance these imperatives at the micro, mezzo and macro levels.,By highlighting the connection, relatively under-represented in the literature, between the normative and the empirical in smart cities research, this paper encourages a more structured debate between academia and policymakers focused on the sustainable development of cities/urban areas. In doing so, it also advocates policies and strategies conducive to strengthening individuals’/citizens’ ability to benefit from and contribute to smart cities development, thereby making them sustainable.,This paper makes a case for pragmatic and demand-driven smart cities research, i.e. based on the frequently very basic needs of individuals and citizens inhabiting not only urban but also rural areas. It highlights the role of basic infrastructure as the key enabler/inhibitor of information and communication technology-enhanced services. The nested clusters model introduced in this paper suggests that an intimate connection exists between individuals’ well-being, their active civic engagement and smart cities sustainability.,This paper delineates the relationship between megacities and smart cities research. It identifies the sources of what is termed normative bias in smart cities research. To address the implications of that bias, a nested clusters model for smart cities is introduced, i.e. a conceptual framework that allows us to redraw the debate on smart cities and establish a functional connection between the array of normatively laden ideas of what a smart city could be and what is feasible, and under which conditions at the policymaking level.

From Grexit to Grecovery: The Paradox of the Troika's Engagement with Greece

Abstract Locked in the commitments of previous governments and arrangements negotiated with the Troika back in 2010 and early 2012, the Greek government continues to channel the burden of fiscal adjustment towards the private sector, killing any nascent thoughts of investment and entrepreneurship in Greece. Simultaneously, bold structural reforms are kept hostage to the uncertain balance of the ruling coalition and negligible majority in the Greek parliament. Caught literally between a rock and a hard place, the authorities seek to attain a primary fiscal surplus, hopeful that this will help to bring an end to the essentially faulty economic adjustment programme for Greece in 2014. Surprisingly, the talk of fiscal surplus alone seems to have ignited positive expectations that the crisis might, in fact, be nearing an end. This suggests that in the same way as the crisis in Greece was provoked by irresponsible and inaccurate statements about Greeces fiscal position and Grexit was a viable option through 2011, discourses on Grecovery may prove constitutive of the end of the crisis. This paper explores this issue and by so doing contemplates the evolving nature of the core-periphery relations in the EU and its policy-making.

Advanced decision-making in higher education: learning analytics research and key performance indicators

In our days, the interaction of Behaviour and Information Technology is challenged by emerging technologies, including cognitive computing and business intelligence. The learning domain has many features that query the added value of the adoption of these technologies. Using the well-defined scientific and application domain described as Information Technology, we focus on some of the most evolutionary technologies of the last years, namely Learning Analytics and Cognitive Computing. These technologies and methodologies are the main focus of this special issue, which aims to foster a scientific debate for the new era of Higher Education. In this new scenario, academic institutions would have to develop strategies for the adoption of technologies in the daily educational process beyond current limitations and barriers, promoting advanced decisionmaking capabilities. Learning Analytics and applications have received growing attention in recent years from various perspectives (Lytras, Raghavan, and Damiani 2017; Lytras et al. 2018a, 2018b, 2018c; Zhang et al. 2018). The thriving numbers of Big Data creation in Higher Education have captured the attention of Higher Education, computer engineering, and business researchers that, in the past years, have been trying to decipher the phenomenon of Higher Education Performance and Innovation (Visvizi, Lytras, and Daniela 2018), its relation to already-conducted research, and its implications for new research opportunities that affect innovations in teaching and higher education dynamics. The purpose of the special issue is to describe critically the state of the art of the literature Learning Analytics and analyse how new, advanced and educational models and the adoption strategies can expand the sustainability frontiers in advanced applied computer engineering and knowledge management towards Smart Education and knowledge society vision (Lytras, Damiani, and Mathkour 2016, 2015). In Figure 1, we present a first interpretation of the metaphors for learning Analytics that are discussed in this special issue: The open research agenda on learning analytics for advanced decision-making in higher education – overview of the published papers