Participation is central to the development of the Smart City Strategy. In practical terms this means: The urban society takes part and develops ideas together with the political institutions.

The process of strategy development is divided into three phases. Particularly in the first two phases of this open process, Berliners were able to actively contribute their ideas and preferences; however, the next steps will also offer opportunities for reflection with urban society and other actors.
 

Phase 1: February to May 2021 – Close involvement of the public

The Strategic Framework for the Berlin Smart City Strategy was published in the summer of 2021. The first phase of the process included various participation formats aimed at the whole of Berlin’s urban society. The basic idea, objectives and principles of good practice were developed during this stage of strategy development.
 

• Basic idea: Puts the vision of Smart City Berlin into words. Defines the orientation of Smart City Berlin and the basic values on which it is based.
   
• Principles: Define the “how” of the work on Smart City Berlin – and also how the city will develop. The principles are an important basis for the joint action of all those involved.
   
• Objectives: Specify the direction in which Smart City Berlin will develop and what everyone is working on collectively.

Phase 2: August 2021 to May 2022 – From vision to strategy

The second stage of the strategy process was also linked to different participation formats for the various stakeholders such as business, science, administration and urban society. This stage of the process focused on defining a strategy together and was characterised by the merging of the Digital Strategy and the Smart City Strategy to create the “Going Digital Together: Berlin” (German only) strategy.

The Digital Strategy integrates the implementation concept into the Smart City Strategy, while the latter contains the vision for Berlin – ensuring urban development and digitisation are always considered together. “Going Digital Together: Berlin” implements actions from the model project and adds central infrastructural measures that aid cooperation between the actors.

All documents developed for the Strategic Framework for the Smart City Berlin Strategy have been stored in a  public knowledge repository (German only).

The first draft of the new strategy (German only) was publicly accessible and open for comments until 24 July 2022.
 

Phase 3: January 2022 to the end of 2026 – The implementation stage

Concrete measures and projects are currently being tested and realised. This phase includes the implementation of five pilot projects that had already been outlined in the application for the model project