2018•04•18     Guimarães

RMIT University and UNU-EGOV have partnered to collaborate on smart urban innovation and technology-enabled user engagement projects

RMIT University campus in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Times Higher Education)

Driven by RMIT Europe, located in Barcelona (Spain), and the UNU Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance, located in Guimarães (Portugal), the collaboration between the two entities will see the exploration of a range of research areas and collaborative projects. This includes the development of appropriate governance models, together with legal and policy frameworks when introducing new technologies in urban and rural areas.

Both universities have performed extensive research and innovation experience in Europe across cities, infrastructure, and utilities. In addition to this, the initial collaboration between RMIT and UNU-EGOV includes the working visit of Associate Professor Mark Gregory, a telecommunications, security and privacy expert, to the Operating Unit headquarters in Portugal. Gregory worked with Adjunct Professor Vitor Fonte and Academic Fellow Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen for three weeks to prepare a EU H2020 project submission. EU H2020 is the European Commission’s research and innovation funding scheme.

It is a great opportunity to collaborate with UNU-EGOV and the RMIT Europe team on an EU H2020 project submission on public engagement with electronic governance. – Mark Gregory

This initial collaboration is expected to lead to a number of outcomes, including joint research proposals, academic exchange, and a formal partnership agreement. The primary focus of RMIT and UNU-EGOV collaboration will be in Europe. However, the growing presence of both RMIT and UNU in the Asian region are, nonetheless, an area of potential collaboration.

RMIT and UNU-EGOV complement one another in the areas of applied technology and policy research. We believe that, jointly, we can exploit these synergies to the benefit of both organisations and our public and private sector partners. We look forward to the future collaboration work. – Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

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