Participatory Action Research for the Development of E-Inclusive Smart Cities

The growing emphasis on citizens and private and public stakeholders within smart cities demands approaches where these actors are seen as participants in the decision-making process with their own experiences, wants and needs for sustainable smart city strategies. Gaining insight into their experiences with technologies is essential for the successful deployment of inclusive smart city solutions. We propose PAR4P (Participatory Action Research for the development of Policies) as an approach to enhance collective participation from diverse stakeholders enabling the development of bottom-up and e-inclusive smart city policies. This paper provides a detailed description of the PAR4P approach and applies it to the development of an e-inclusive smart city masterplan for the Brussels-Capital Region.