Proceedings from Knowledge Cities World Summit

In the 21st century, more than ever before, cities around the world depend on the knowledge of their citizens, their institutions and their firms and enterprises. The Third Knowledge City World Summit, held in Melbourne in November 2010, aimed to shed light on the multi-faceted dimensions and various scales of building the ‘knowledge city’ and on ‘knowledge-based development’ paradigms. To download the full summit proceedings (37 MB) or individual summit papers visit Melbourne Knowledge Summit Proceedings.

Integrating knowledge-based development in urban strategies and policies, beyond the provision of schools and locations for higher education, has become a new ambitious arena of city politics. Coming from theory to practice, and bringing together the manifold knowledge stakeholders in a city and preparing joint visions for the knowledge city is a new challenge for city managers, urban planners and leaders of the civic society. It requires visionary power, creativity, holistic thinking, the willingness to cooperate with all groups of the local civil society, and the capability to moderate communication processes to overcome conflicts and to develop joint action for a sustainable future.