The fifth edition of the SMR newsletter is out now. In this edition, read about our new online version of the Resilience Maturity Model, video interviews with each of SMR's 7 cities, the new Risk Systemicity Questionnaire, Resilience Information Portal, the launch of SMR's first standardisation process and the nomination of the SMR website for the Eurid web awards.

Read the latest newsletter here!

The Smart Mature Resilience project is undergoing another period of local stakeholder training, where local stakeholders in the core cities of Donostia, Glasgow and Kristiansand are receiving in-depth training on the use of the SMR tools that are being developed at the moment.

The first stakeholder training workshop took place in Donostia-San Sebastian beginning of June 2017, while the next visit is already planned for middle of July in Glasgow. During these trainings, local stakeholders receive training on the use of the System Dynamics Model, which accompanies the Resilience Maturity Model that is already available online.

The System Dynamics Model allows its users, specifically municipal employees and elected officials that are engaged in activities connected to strategic planning and management of the city to train themselves and understand which the main elements of the resilience building process in their city are.

Following the training, a 2-tier webinar will be held, where the tier-2 city of Bristol will be informed on the training activities and results from the city of Donostia, the tool developers of Tecnun, University of Navarra and co-creation partner ICLEI Europe, while they will be able to ask questions and provide feedback on the results. Stay tuned for the webinar announcement or catch up with the results later.

The Smart Mature Resilience project is working towards standardized methods to build resilience in European cities. The workshop will aim at developing consensus-based list of requirements on how municipalities could equip an information system that facilitates building up resilience through collaboration, communication, and engagement. This marks the functional specification for a Resilience Information Portal.

The kick-off meeting will be held on 21 June 2017 in Brussels at ICLEI Europe. All interested parties are welcome to register for participation and submit comments on the draft Project Plan to Workshop Secretary, René Lindner no later than 16 June 2017.

The final deliverable of this Workshop (CEN/CWA) is expected to be finalized in November 2017.

Details of the event are available at http://smr-project.eu/news/events/?c=search&uid=d799f4d1.

The SMR project has presented its tools and standardization activities to the plenary meeting today in Berlin of ISO/TC 268: Sustainable cities and communities. The project's tools and the standardization potential for city resilience were presented by Holger Robrecht (ICLEI Europe), Vasileios Latinos (ICLEI Europe) and Rene Lindner (DIN). Standardization in the field of Sustainable Cities and Communities will include the development of requirements, frameworks, guidance and supporting techniques and tools related to the achievement of sustainable development considering smartness and resilience, to help all Cities and Communities and their interested parties in both rural and urban areas become more sustainable.

The proposed series of International Standards will encourage the development and implementation of holistic and integrated approaches to sustainable development and sustainability. TC 268 will contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals through its standardization work.

As part of SMR’s standardization work, the project has identified the following standards particularly relevant for resilient cities are:

- ISO 37101: aims at helping cities and communities to better coordinate participatory development and implementation of a local sustainability programme. The standard supports good governance by describing a coherent, community-based management approach. A practical guidance for cities on practical implementation is under development (ISO 37104).

- ISO 37120: recommends a selection of indicators for local reporting on life-quality. The selection is voluntary and based on local priorities.

- ISO 37150: provides a reference framework for “Smart urban infrastructures” based on ISO 22325, ISO 22316 and BS 65000 Organizational Resilience.

SMR supports the dissemination and mainstreaming of resilience by engaging in standardization activities with DIN to create a standard for resilience management.