Dr Igor Calzada, MBA, FeRSA, is an academic working as Lecturer, Senior Research Fellow, and Policy Adviser in Urban Transformations and the Future of Cities at the:
At present, he is co-ordinating the European strategy of Urban Transformations and as a result the University of Oxford and Vrije Universiteit Brussel have signed a collaboration agreement in order to co-produce a Workshop Series entitled ‘Bridging European Urban Transformations’ that will take place in different venues in Brussels during 2016-2018 in the following topics:
4rd Workshop > ‘Commoning Entrepreneurship in City-Regions’ [Economy of/in Cities]
He has been Lecturer in Business Administration, Social Science, Geography, Cultural Studies, Innovation Studies and Policy & Sociology at Aston University in Birmingham (UK), the University of Nevada (USA), the University of Helsinki (Finland) and the University of Mondragon (Spain).
His main research interests are comparing social, technological, economic, democratic and politically innovative processes in cities and regions by paying special attention to cases and issues of regional and metropolitan devolution. In particular, he is focused on investigating European City-Region and Smart City benchmarking case studies through the application of qualitative and action research methods.
What specific 4 questions does his research address?
Smart Devolution: How can we capture conceptually this new dynamic within existing nation-states that goes beyond plurinationality, employing imaginative and entrepreneurial ways of political and policy mechanisms within nation-states to identify and pursue “smart” avenues of timely, subtle political strategies for change in the current re-foundation momentum embracing the EU?
Pervasive Metropolitanisation: Given that supranational institutions such the EU (H2020), the UN (Habitat), and the OECD are focusing on the fact that the governance mechanism should strongly consider the urban transformative dimension when it comes to policy architecture and design, how could the pervasive and dynamic metropolitanisation processes be researched in light of the increasing importance of paradiplomacy and the cities and subnational actors (regions) becoming international actors themselves?
Transitional & Experimental (Smart) Cities: Given the so-called smart city dominance in sustainable urban development these days, how could we implement a multi-stakeholder (Calzada, 2016) smart city alternative and more inclusive governance approach by considering the entire range of metropolitan and regional agents involved (based on the penta-helix model consisting of the interdependency between the private sector, the public sector, academia, civic society. and entrepreneurs)? What are the practical and/or political interventions needed? How can Urban Living Labs help to re-locate the smart city debate in a broader and bolder innovative debate?
Techno-politics of Data Governance: Given the context of hyper-connected societies (Morozov, 2012), how can we prompt critical methodological advancements for data analytics and data governance models to empower democracy from a new triad made up of techno-politics, networks, and citizenship?
He is working in two main research fields:
1.- The first research field is about City-Regions:
2012-2014: Initially funded by Ikerbasque (Basque Foundation for Science) under the Researchers’ Skills Improvement Scheme by the Scientific Direction of the Basque Regional Government.
Rationale: He has investigated the city-regional cases of Dublin, Portland, the Basque Country, Oresund, Iceland, Liverpool/Manchester, Scotland and Catalonia. In the context of these cases, which are based on either politically driven nationalistic or non-nationalistic economic renewal strategies, he is engaged in interpreting new citizenship and metropolitanisation patterns involving the tensions between recentralisation and independence in city-regions and nation-states, which clearly will ultimately require new policy adjustments both at the national and European Union (EU) levels.
2.- The second research field is about Smart Cities:
At the EU level, currently, he is also conducting research on comparative metropolitan smart city-regional case studies in various projects in permanent collaboration with European partners (HEI, public authorities, private firms, civic groups, and so on):
2016-2021: EU-H2020-SCC-01-2015-691735-Lighthouse Project. ‘REPLICATE: REinassance of PLaces with Innovative Citizenship And TEchnology’ by the European Commission, Horizon 2020 – Research and Innovation Framework Programme. Lighthouse, follower and other cities cities: St Sebastian (Spain), Bristol (UK), Firenze (Italy), Essen (Germany), Laussane (Switzerland), Nilüfer/Bursa (Turkey), Bogotá (Colombia) & Guanghzou (China). WP8 Replication leader (Univ. Oxford): City-to-City Learning & Benchmarking.
2016: URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS ESRC portfolio Project led by the University of Oxford (UK), European strategy & branch.
In addition, there are three main research fields that he is combining in an eclectic mix: Territories, Social Innovation, Strategy & Governance. He summaries this mix as: Smart City-Regional Comparative International Interdisciplinary Applied Research.
In the last decade or so, there has been a proliferation of literature on new forms of urban and regional governance (Brenner et al, 2014; Keating et al, 2014; Herrschel, 2014). His main concern is about how territories behave in this new scenario, taking into account that the main analytical unit is the Region.
His research aims to understand the City-Region concept comparatively while gathering eight evidence-based case studies with the research project: ‘Benchmarking Future City-Regions’. Different case studies articulate their city-regionalism features in a diverse way, he aims to analyze what these features are and how they relate to each other systemically. He is conducting field work qualitative research applying the 5-System City-Region Framework.
He is interested in the controversial way territories are defined and are objects of diverse policy-making processes. Not only he is interested in the nature of the city-regions comparatively speaking, but also how controversial the definition of the territorial unit could be. As an example, he is observing a Smart City idea and application from the Critical Social Innovation perspective which means that a new paradigm is required when urban bottom-up interventions are going to be the key governance challenge in the postgrowth era.
Action Research Methodologies:Qualitative, Comparative & Strategic/Ethnographic.
He carries out action research methodology is a resourceful way to attempt to understand the dynamics of emerging topics such as these, in which unprecedented facts are to be studied by following-up news, reviewing policy papers and reports, reading academic papers and at the same time gathering qualitative data via interviews; the goal is to remain up to day and show new results as they emerge in this on-going research process.
At the moment, he is interested in the following topics:
Smart Cities? Replicability vs City-to-City Learning, New Cities, Smart Rural Communities, Rural Living Labs, Open Platforms, Techno-politics of Data, DataViz, Urban Dashboards & Big/Open Data
City-Regions: Comparative Territorial Studies and Smart Devolution
Pervasive Metropolitanisation Processes: Political Regionalism
Global Sustainable City-Regions
Urban Transformations: Urban Commons, Multi-stakeholder schemes, and Helix Thinking
Local Governance, Citizen Participation & Communitarian Development
Action Research Methodologies
Political Innovation: Civic Nationalism, Sovereignty, Stateless Small Nations, Identity, Constitutional Change, Self-government, The Right to Decide, Devolution & Independence.
SCIENTIFIC & PROFESIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
He has been presented with 10 Research Fellowships and Awards from 2008 to the present time to research on Regional Comparative Studies:
2017: Awarded as Fellow of the Regional Studies Association, FeRSA.
2005<: He is carrying out policy related research, on the 5th, 6th and 7th FP and H2020 of the EU. During this time, he has been and is working as an international strategic & innovation academic adviser for institutions & companies.
<2002: He worked as Deputy Manager in SMEs.
Alongside his educational qualifications are as follows:
2017: Municipality of Zumaia. ‘Smart Tourism Labs in the Basque Geopark of Unesco in the village of Zumaia, Basque Country (Spain).’
2016-2017: EUDEL, Basque Municipalities’ Association with LKS Consultancy for the Basque Regional Government. ‘Strategic Smart City-Regional Bottom-Up Strategy of Basque Autonomy’s Municipalities‘/La Estrategia Vasca de Territorio Inteligente en el Contexto Europeo Horizonte 2020: De la Agenda Digital Municipal a la Gobernanza de la Ciudad-Región Inteligente Vasca’. (Spain)
2016: Future Cities Catapult. ‘Smartness for Prosperity: UK & Brazil‘ Research Executive Advisor in the joint venture research project with MACI Innovation in Projects. (UK)
2015: EU-FP7-314679-STEP UP Smart City Plan MSc Global Sustainable Cities Master LecturerEnergy Planning for Cities Smart City Master Plan for four EU Cities: Glasgow (Scotland-UK), Riga (Latvia), Gothenburg (Sweden) and Ghent (Belgium).
2014-2015: EU-FP7-314277-STEEP Smart City Plan Advisory Board project member funded by the EU FP7-314277: Systems Thinking for comprehensive city Efficient Energy Planning Smart City Master Plan for three EU Cities: St Sebastian (Spain)(leader), Bristol (UK) and Florence (Italy).
2014-2015: City Performance report by Urban Land Institute, Säid Business School, Department of Land Economy of the University of Cambridge and Future of Cities – COMPAS, University of Oxford (UK).
His hobbies are three: (1) he plays and sings in Basque & English as performing songwriter with the nickname FasTFatum, (2) jogs or runs half-marathons hashtaging as #7MilesJog & (3) loves coffee and his favorite color is green.
Calzada, I. (2018), Political Regionalism in the Age of Devolution in Europe: Metropolitanisation and the Right to Decide. In Anssi Paasi, John Harrison and Martin Jones (eds), Handbook on the Geographies of Regions and Territories. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. [In Print]
Calzada, I. (2017) From Smart Cities to Experimental Cities?In Vincenzo Mario Bruno Giorgino and Zachary David Walsh (eds), Co-Designing Economies in Transition: Radical Approaches in Dialogue with Contemplative Social Sciences. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. [In Print]
Calzada, I. (2016), Independentziaz (independentziarekin), Chapter in the Book Uranga, M. (Ed.) Erabakitzeko eskubidea, botere eragilea, burujabetasuna, Sorzain argitaletxea: Bilbao.
Calzada, I. (2015), Introduction: Zubigintza/Bridging, Basque Political Innovation, Chapter in the Book Calzada, I. & Bildarratz, J. Political Innovation: Constitutional Change, Self-Government, The Right To Decide & Independence. Donostia, TransLoKal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making – Publishing. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3799.1125.
Calzada, I. (2015), Conclusion: Towards Basque Political Innovation. Building a Strategic Roadmap, Chapter in the Book Calzada, I. & Bildarratz, J. Political Innovation: Constitutional Change, Self-Government, The Right To Decide & Independence. Donostia, TransLoKal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making – Publishing. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2226.2481.
Calzada, I. (2017), Smart Rural Communities in Colombia, Honduras and Mozambique. Ed. Ayuda en Acción, Translokal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making y University of Oxford. ISBN: 978-84-946385-2-7.
Calzada, I. (2016), Basque Smart City-Region Strategy in the H2020 European Context / La Estrategia Vasca de Territorio Inteligente en el Contexto Europeo Horizonte 2020: De la Agenda Digital Municipal a la Gobernanza de la Ciudad-Región Inteligente Vasca – HERRI-SMARTIK commissioned by EUDEL (Basque Municipalities’ Association), LKS Consultancy and the Basque Regional Government, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Information Society Department. Translokal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making. ISBN: 978-84-946385-1-0.
Calzada, I. (2016), (Un)Plugging Smart Cities Transformations and Strategies in Europe, Harvard University Whitepaper contribution given on 13th October at 2016 Strategic Innovation Summit: Smart Cities Europe held by the Dublin City Council and the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University in Dublin, Maynooth University. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.34524.80000.
Calzada, I. & McAdam, G. (2016), Smartness for Prosperity: Brazil & UK, Policy report commissioned by Future Cities Catapult in collaboration with MACI Innovation in Projects and published by Translokal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making – Publishing, Donostia. ISBN: 978-84-942752-9-6. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1074.0087.
Calzada, I. (2015), Gizarte Berrikuntza: Lurraldegintza Estrategikorako. Policy Paper < > Politika-Txostena. Ikerketa Estrategikoa. BeteBerritzen Proiektua. [Elhuyar Aholkularitza, Gipuzkoa Foru Aldundia eta Beterri]. TransLoKal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making – Publishing, Donostia. ISBN: 84-942752-5-9.
Calzada, I. (2017), Unplugging, Smart Devolution and Technopolitics of Data, panelist at Smart City Expo World Congress Barcelona 2017, Barcelona (Spain), 14-16th November.
Calzada, I. (2017), The ‘right’ political scale for city participation, Bilbao (Spain), 10th November.
Calzada, I. (2017), Democratising Smart Cities: Urban Commons, paper will be presented at the Spatial Smartness, Third Conference of the RSA Research Network on Smart City-Regional Governance for Sustainability, Gdansk (Poland), on 21-22 September.
Calzada, I. (2017), Keynote Speaker, La Europa de ‘Nuestras’ Ciudades: El Poder ‘TransloKal’ de ‘Lo Pequeño’, in the Getxo Europa 2017 Conference, Getxo, Basque Country (Spain), on 10th May 2017.
Calzada, I. (2016), Keynote Speaker. The Identity of the European Cities, Summer School organised jointly by Bilbao Metropolitan Agency and St Sebastian Strategic Plan Office, 11-12nd July into the Miramar Palace Summer School. (Basque Country-Spain)
Calzada, I. (2016), Keynote Speaker. Smart (City)-Regions: Territorial & Urban Transformations, delivered in Vilanova i la Geltru (Garraf, Barcelona), Catalonia, organised by the Neàpolis (Public Innovation Agency), Province Council of Barcelona and the Catalan Government – Generalitat de Catalunya on 6th April.
Calzada, I., Goikoetxea, J. & Soto, I. (2016), Independentzia: Nola eta Nondik?, panel convened by Ezkerraberri Foundation on 10th March (Bilbao).
Calzada, I. (2015), Vision of Future Cities, PechaKucha presentation delivered at the Institute for Future Cities at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (Scotland) on 25th September 2015.
Calzada, I. (2015), Foresight Project on the Future of Cities Workshop, Government Office for Science, UK Government. London (England) on 21st September 2015.
Calzada, I. (2015), InFocus Smart City 2015 Conference. Yinchuan (China) on 12th September 2015.
Calzada, I. (2015), Gizarte Berrikuntza Lurraldegintza Estrategikorako, at Videoconference with Andoain, Bastero Cultural Centre (Basque Country – Spain), paper given on 18 June, organised by Elhuyar Social Innovation Consultancy & Gipuzkoa Province Council.
Calzada, I. (2014), PostIndependence and devolution strategies from a city-regional perspective. Public University in Navarra (Spain). Alkartasuna Foundation. 29th September – 1st
Calzada, I. (2014), Cities and Participation Thematic Session. (Chair). Towards Living Cities Conference. Urban Regeneration Forum Bilbao-Bizkaia Architecture (Spain), 26th September 2014 and member of the Scientific Committee.
Calzada, I. (2014), Smart Cities Systemic approach, paper given in Bristol (UK) in the STEEP 7th FP project Advisory Board conference in 23rd
Calzada, I. (2014), City-Regional Policies, paper given at the Sharegune Workshop at the Basque Institute of Competitiveness, Orkestra – University of Deusto (Spain), 26th May.
Calzada, I. (2014), Balance and Imbalance Territorial Development Strategies, paper given at Klimagune 2013 Workshop entitled Opportunities, Challenges and Barriers for Transitions Towards Sustainability in the Context of Climate Change, Bilbao, 19th December.
Calzada, I. (2013), Regional Policy, Governance & Social Innovation from the Action Research approach paper given at the Regional Innovation Policy RIP 2013, organized by Orkestra- Basque Institute of Competitiveness, University of Deusto. St. Sebastian (Spain)[1], 10th October. [1]https://sites.google.com/a/orkestra.deusto.es/rip_2013/
Calzada, I. & Casado, A. (2013), Basque & Iceland Connection, paper given at the Philosophy Department, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, September 27th.
Calzada, I. (2013), Entrepreneurs & Territories, paper given at the Research Symposium Skool Centre for Entrepreneurship, Säid Business School, University of Oxford (UK), 23rd July.
Calzada, I. (2005). Sustainable Development in the City-Region: the future of work and innovation by means of creatrive communities and classes paper given at the XVI. Congreso de Estudios Vascos: Garapen Iraunkorra-IT. Etorkizuna=Desarrollo Sostenible-IT en el Futuro. Pag. 626. Bilbao (Spain), 5th March.
Dr Calzada has been lecturing from 2005 onwards in the following High Education Institutions (HEI): University of Oxford (UK), University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (UK), Aston University in Birmingham (UK), University of Mondragon (Spain), University of Nevada (USA), University of Helsinki (Finland):