Introducing a New Transdisciplinary JournalThe concept of a smart city includes a high degree of information technology integration, but goes beyond the use of ICT for better resource use and less emissions. It means smarter urban transport networks, upgraded water supply and waste disposal facilities, and more efficient ways to light and heat buildings. It also encompasses a more interactive and responsive city administration and safer public spaces, and meets the needs of an ageing population. To speed up the deployment of these solutions, in July 2012 the European Commission has initiated the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Smart Cities and Communities that will bring together European cities, industry leaders, and representatives of civil society to smarten up Europe's urban areas. 370 commitments (from more than 3000 partners) have been received to fund and develop smart solutions in the areas of energy, ICT, and transport for making our cities more attractive and creating business opportunities. The reliance of society on the use of ICT devices and systems is increasing, with over 8% of all electricity consumption and 4% of all CO 2 emissions (also, one must consider that TV and media that are now translated onto ICT devices and systems). Energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from expanding ICT use are unsustainable and will impact heavily on future climate change. Communications consumes significantly more energy per bit of information than any logical calculation inside an ICT system.On the other hand, the so-called Internet of Things (IoT) scenario foresees that an ever-increasing number of smart, mobile, sensing, and communicating devices will be dispersed into ordinary appliances and tools of common use. To meet the performances of foreseeable energy harvester generators, the amount of power required by such devices needs to be significantly reduced. Energy consumption could be minimized if smart communications minimizing the amount of data being transported are used over other techniques. The development and fast deployment of new communications systems with low energy consumption per bit are essential to circumvent the enormous increase in data volume from cloud, and especially high definition video.Whilst the direct contribution to CO 2 emission from ICT devices might be small, ICT devices have the potential to contribute significantly to the reduction of CO 2 in transportation, heating and cooling, building control, and manufacturing in a new vision of the city.For autonomous systems, significant improvements in energy harvesting and energy storage at a small scale would also provide disruptive solutions to the use of smart sensors for a host of applications in personalized healthcare, environmental monitoring, industrial monitoring, security, and transportation. Such applications have the potential for significant reductions in energy
