This European project of the 7th Framework Program "Peripheria - Networked Smart Peripheral Cities for Sustainable Lifestyles" was launched in November 2010 and is being funded by the ICT Policy Support Program of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Program of the European Commission.

The main goal of PERIPHERIA is to deploy convergent Future Internet platforms and services for the promotion of sustainable lifestyles in and across emergent networks of "smart" peripheral cities in Europe with specific vocation for green creativity. Its new Open Service Convergence Platform, an "Internet by and for the People", will integrate sensor networks, real time 3D and mobile location-based services with the Future of Internet main paradigms - Internet of Things, Internet of Services and Internet of People. Specific technologies - results of previous research initiatives, emerging devices and platforms, and ad hoc mash-ups designed and implemented on the spot - will come together to converge into a common Living-Lab-like setting for the co-creation of next-generation personal and collective services, shifting technology R&D out of the laboratory and into the real world and users.

To reach its objectives, Peripheria is applying a new methodological approach to technology development set up in five archetypical "Arenas" - specific urban settings or innovation playgrounds, with defined social features and infrastructure requirements - as the spaces where co-design and service integration processes unfold:

• Smart Neighborhood: where media-based social interaction occurs
• Smart Street: where new transportation behaviors develop
• Smart Square: where civic decisions are taken
• Smart Museum and Park: where natural and cultural heritage feed learning
• Smart City Hall: where mobile e-government services are delivered

The pilot projects are based in the five Partner Cities - Malmö (SE), Bremen (DE), Athens (GR), Genoa (IT) and Palmela (PT), reflecting developments across diverse cultural, institutional and territorial frameworks. By using Serious Games to stimulate social interaction of "people in places", cross-city linking of Arenas and discovery-driven platform convergence, the project consortium strives to show that convergence of Future Internet platforms occurs through social interaction in concrete situations, in an "Internet by and for the People" - a discovery-driven rather than functionalities-driven centripetal aggregation of the evolving Future Internet paradigms. Together with six other Sponsoring cities, transfer scenarios are being developed and tested in the new and emergent Network of Peripheral Smart Cities in Europe and beyond.

This project is coordinated by Alfamicro (Portugal) and involves 12 partners from 5 European countries. The ITAS team, led by Dr. Krassimira Paskaleva-Shapira, is one of the three core partners of the consortium that are driving project development and implementation. ITAS also leads the work on Smart Citizen Communities, Project Evaluation, Impact, and Policy and the Dissemination and Exploitation activities.

Project website: www.peripheria.eu