Within the research project REAL Cities – BERGAMO 2.035 ǀ Smarter Citizens, the University of Bergamo set up an agreement of scientific collaboration with the Harvard University – Graduate School of Design which provides for reciprocal mobility of students for teaching and research activities.

According to the agreement, each year in February twelve students from the Harvard University – Graduate School of Design come to the University of Bergamo for a week while in April twelve students from the University of Bergamo spend a week at Harvard University – Graduate School of Design on the research themes of Smarter Citizens.

In particular, Smarter Citizens is conceived as a collaboration project among students, researchers and professors of the two institutions based on the Bergamo region as fulcrum of case studies and with the active involvement of the business community, the local government and other local stakeholders. The twofold object of the research project is to

1. investigate the main trends and scenarios characterizing the Smart City model in rural and urban territories in the coming decades, and
2. test the possible solutions in labs as prototype models and then within the Bergamo region as pilot projects.