Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

3. The empirical study
3.1 Methodology
Katia Rodrigues and Eduardo Tomé
3.1.1 The smart cities methodology
In this study we follow <strong>the</strong> smart cities methodology (Giffinger and al, 2007). Smart or knowledge
cities reflect <strong>the</strong> need <strong>of</strong> a radical reformulation <strong>of</strong> cities, as a consequence <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> change <strong>the</strong> world
faced in <strong>the</strong> Knowledge Era, and when it entered <strong>the</strong> Knowledge Based Economy. Smart cities score
high in <strong>the</strong> following items: smart economy (innovation, entrepreneurship, productivity, branches,
flexibility, international integration); smart mobility (local accessibility, national accessibility, availability
<strong>of</strong> ICT infra-structures, transport systems); smart living (cultural equipments, health conditions, quality
<strong>of</strong> housing, individual safety, educational facilities, touristic attraction, and social cohesion); smart
Governance (participation in <strong>the</strong> decision making process, level <strong>of</strong> public social services,
transparency, strategy and perspectives); smart Environment (natural conditions, pollution,
environmental protection, management <strong>of</strong> natural resources); smart people (skills, lifelong learning,
ethnic plurality, creativity, cosmopolitism, participation in <strong>the</strong> working life) (Giffinger and al, 2007).
3.1.2 The chosen cases
This practical part is based on statistical data related to three cities: Braga (PT), Luxembourg (LU)
and Ruse (BG). Braga is our case study, <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r two cities were chosen because <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir positions
in <strong>the</strong> ranking <strong>of</strong> "european smart cities" (Giffinger and al, 2007). The city <strong>of</strong> Luxembourg occupies <strong>the</strong>
first place and <strong>the</strong> city <strong>of</strong> Ruse occupies <strong>the</strong> last place. So we will compare <strong>the</strong> reality <strong>of</strong> Braga with
<strong>the</strong> best smart city and <strong>the</strong> worst smart city. The three medium-sized cities have at least one
university: University <strong>of</strong> Minho (Braga), Angel Kanchev University <strong>of</strong> Ruse (Ruse) and University <strong>of</strong>
Luxembourg (Luxembourg).
3.1.3 The national setting
We consider to be important to describe briefly <strong>the</strong> three countries in which <strong>the</strong> three cities are located
in terms <strong>of</strong> broad economic indicators. The indicators used are those used in <strong>the</strong> study european
smart cities. But unfortunately we were not able to find information for all fields used in that
methodology. To overcome that problem we added variables as <strong>the</strong> HDI, and also governance
indicators. The data we collected are shown in Table 2
Table 2: Broad economic indicators for case study countries
Portugal Luxembourg Bulgaria
HDI (a) 0,897 0,944 0,824
GDP ($US CURRENT
millions ) (b)
242 689 54 257.3 49 900.4
Voice and Accountability
(c)
89.1 97.6 64.0
Political Stability (c) 74.5 96.2 62.7
Government
Effectiveness (c)
85.2 96.2 59.0
Regulatory Quality (c) 80.5 95.7 71.4
Rule <strong>of</strong> Law (c) 83.5 97.6 53.8
Control <strong>of</strong> Corruption (c) 81.9 95.2 54.3
Source: (a) United Nations Development Program 2007 (b) World bank 2008 (c) World bank 2009 (c)
Percentile Rank (0-100)
Luxembourg (country) is positioned in <strong>the</strong> first place in all indicators in relation to Portugal and
Bulgaria. Luxembourg has excellent results in <strong>the</strong> HDI, <strong>the</strong> GDP (U.S. $ millions current), in Voice and
Accountability in Political Stability, Government Effectiveness in <strong>the</strong> Regulatory Quality Rule <strong>of</strong> Law
and <strong>the</strong> Control <strong>of</strong> Corruption. Portugal performs better than Bulgaria in all indicators. These
indicators are very important to describe <strong>the</strong> social, economic and political <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> countries. Most
investors give immense relief to <strong>the</strong>se economic indicators. Before realizing microeconomic is
necessary to understand macroeconomic. These indicators are developed by <strong>the</strong> World Bank and <strong>the</strong>
United Nations Development Program.
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