Barcelona, Espoo, Grenoble, Groningen, Malaga and Paris are the six cities shortlisted for the first European Capital of Innovation award, or iCapital. The award will go to the city building the best “innovation ecosystem’ – connecting citizens, public organisations, academia, and business – with a view to helping the city scale up its efforts in this field.

In this video interview, academic and author Richard Florida explains how energy and creative, knowledge-based companies’”particularly in the high-tech field’”are increasingly consolidating in urban areas, generating a new economic growth model.

In one of his latest articles Greg Satell, contributor in Forbes magazine, argues that innovation, most of all, is driven by collaboration and presents how this concept is connected with the cities as important innovation platforms.

ICEIRD 2014 invites submissions of papers related to all the topics of interest of the conference. Papers that address collaborations between industry and academia, case studies as well as experience reports on any of the conference themes are welcome.

 This conference at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning, 7 and 8 November 2013, will discuss social innovations and conflicts in urban development and planning in the light of multiple challenges and conflicts that cities are facing today.

With the European Capital of Innovation Award, the European Commission wants to acknowledge the outstanding achievement of a city in building up an innovation ecosystem, i.e. a system which links the citizens (People) with a built environment (Place) and public organizations and policy-makers (Public) through business (Private).

The Center of Studies on Geography and Spatial Planning (CEGOT) promotes the investigation and debate around various areas of Geography and at the intersection with diverse scientific disciplines,