From knowledge and research institutions to leading industry players: in Flanders, your business finds all the smart city expertise it needs to thrive. But don’t just take our word for it. Discover our region’s assets and strengths relevant to the following smart city building blocks:

• micro- and nanotechnology;
• network technologies;
• big data;
• the Internet of Things;
• mobile applications.

Through its living lab, IoT and smart city expertise, imec is working on and supports major projects, including:

• SELECT for Cities – A European initiative that aims to develop an innovation and technology platform to help transform cities into large-scale testing grounds for IoT experiments.
• City of Things (CoT) – A project that brings the Internet of Things to the city of Antwerp (Flanders), turning it into an IoT living lab as well as a real-time open data platform. How? By positioning hundreds of smart sensors and wireless gateways at carefully selected locations, from streets to buildings.
• Capital of Things (CAoT) – An extension of the CoT-project. In this venture, the city of Antwerp, the port of Antwerp, the University of Antwerp and international research hub imec collaborate to establish an IoT ecosystem with the goal of providing innovative solutions for e-health, industry 4.0 and the circular economy. The innovative plans for education and the city harbor are particularly remarkable. Together with universities in Brussels and Ghent, the University of Antwerp will organize an interacademic program on Internet of Things topics that will be developed into a true degree program. The port of Antwerp will collaborate with data platform NxtPort and private port companies on a ‘Harbor of Things’ to prepare themselves for the dramatic technology changes coming in the near future.

Flanders offers incentives that are particularly relevant to a research-intensive domain like smart city technology and its applications. Examples include:

• innovation income deduction – up to 85% of a firm’s net earnings from innovation is tax exempt;
• Investment deduction for R&D – 13.5% of acquisition value/qualifying asset or 20.5% of the depreciated amount;
• Exemption of payment of 80% – of the personal income withholding tax of researchers in certain scientific fields.

• …  Ghent, Antwerp, Mechelen, Kortrijk, Leuven, Ostend, Hasselt and Genk are part of the Flemish Smart Energy Cities network? This initiative of VITO and EnergyVille aims to exchange hands-on experience related to smart energy activities while contributing to partner cities’ climate ambitions.