ABOUT

OUR MISSION

STICS Launches an Open Innovation Ecosystem for Slovakia

The data of Slovakia’s municipalities, towns, and regions have been asleep—until now. The Smart Transformation and Innovation Consortium Slovakia (STICS) is waking them up. We are uniting 24 international partners from municipalities, academia, business, and the nonprofit sector and building an open ecosystem that will bring, test, scale, and implement innovations across local governments. Our motto is: “Short Project, Big Impact – STICS, join the progress.

STICS builds on the results of the Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, and INTERREG programs. At the heart of the project are Living Labs—real urban testbeds where algorithms, AI, IoT, and smart-grid solutions prove their strength directly in the field. Thanks to secure data sharing, smarter energy systems, smoother transport, and participatory tools are emerging—engaging all relevant local stakeholders. No isolated “smart boxes,” but interconnected systems with measurable impact. STICS turns ideas into reality, launching a wave of innovation for local governments and strengthening the prosperity and competitiveness of Slovakia as a whole.

What STICS will bring to Slovakia

Municipalities — Technologies will be procured based on their own needs more quickly, efficiently, and transparently. Residents will receive tailored services, and city halls will gain new skills for sourcing innovation directly “from the market.” Municipalities, towns, and regions will evaluate public procurements by quality, not by price alone. The key will no longer be the lowest bid but the most economically advantageous offer—that is, one that considers total life-cycle costs of a product or service, not just its initial price. The forthcoming STICS Followers role will offer municipalities outside the consortium attractive options to expand solutions, share experience, and access consultations and training.

Business and start-ups — A unified market for smart solutions is opening up. References from Living Labs will accelerate expansion, and big data will reveal the real needs of local governments. Thanks to better mutual understanding, today’s ambiguities and barriers to introducing innovations will be removed. The forthcoming STICS Collaborators role will give organizations outside the consortium—across business, academia, and the nonprofit sector—the chance to collaborate and develop new products or insights under clearly defined conditions.

Academia and spin-offs — University teams test innovations directly in municipal streets and within companies, so research projects closely mirror societal needs. New firms are created from the results, able to raise capital for innovation, and the share of truly applied research grows. Specialized courses are added, and students find roles in spin-offs they helped build. This can have a positive effect as young, creative people find opportunities in Slovakia—including regions with innovation infrastructure—or return after gaining experience abroad. The forthcoming STICS Explorers role will offer students or active citizens diverse levels of involvement in the project—from submitting their own ideas and conducting user research to taking part in competitions. Each of these activities brings valuable hands-on experience that will matter in their future careers.

Society and the planet — STICS helps advance the global Sustainable Development Goals, such as clean and sustainable energy, better air quality, slowing climate change, and protecting biodiversity. It enables smarter mobility, opens participatory decision-making, and strengthens community life—thereby contributing to better health, greater social security, and a higher quality of life for everyone.

National economy — More investment from diverse sources into research and development, an influx of top talent, and growth of the technology and data economy. With a focus on innovative, high value-added sectors, the country’s competitiveness and overall prosperity are strengthened. Broadening and deliberate support of this innovation system will kick-start the creation of new small and medium-sized enterprises. The Slovak economy will thus gradually become more balanced and diversified—with innovative firms increasingly driving GDP growth.

How it all came about
In the spring of 2023, the initial ideas began to take shape into today’s consortium of 24 partners from Slovakia and across Europe. In the autumn, the final project proposal was submitted, and throughout 2024 preparations were underway for presentations to a panel of international evaluators. In February 2025, STICS won second place out of 34 submitted projects. Formal approval arrived on April 1, 2025, and on April 14–15 a two-day kick-off meeting was launched at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. In June 2025, the last signature was added: the Research and Innovation Authority and all 24 partners sealed the grant agreement, so nothing now stands in the way of the project’s implementation.

MANAGEMENT

To move innovation quickly from idea to outcome, we operate a clear and simple governance structure. With clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and control mechanisms, we manage the project transparently—in line with EU requirements and ethical standards.

General Assembly – representatives of all partners

Project Management Board – Work Package Leaders, Scientific Coordinator, Project Coordinator, Deputy Project Coordinator, Project Manager, Project Financial Manager

Project management Office - Project Manager, Project Financial Manager, Innovation Manager, Quality Assurance Officer, Project Risk manager, Ethics Officer, Data Protection Manager, Project Communication Officer

Work Package Leaders – WP1 Management, WP2 Innovation Ecosystem, WP3 Interoperable Data Ecosystem, WP4 Smart tools, WP5 Market Creation, WP6 Living Lab sites, WP7 Capacity Building, WP8 Communication and Dissemination

Task Leaders

T1.1 Overall Project Coordination, Administrative & Financial Management; T1.2 Technical and innovation management; T1.3 Project communication, governance, progress assessment and reporting; T1.4 Quality and risk management; T1.5 Ethics requirements and equality management; T1.6 Data Management

T2.1 Identification of the transformation demand and its dynamics – potential/capacities, challenges, problems, vision 2050; T2.2 Catalysation of transformation processes in the communities - harnessing synergies of social, economic, technology, environmental and other innovations; T2.3 Conceptualisation of Smart cities/regions as innovative ecosystems - integration of the concepts of quadruple helix, manufacturing X, creative environment and establishment of territorial clusters for sustainable resilient innovation based economy and communities; T2.4 Integration of smart approaches for efficient territorial (municipal and regional) governance, evidence based and place based public policy; T2.4 Integration of smart approaches for efficient territorial (municipal and regional) governance, evidence based and place based public policy

T3.1 Adaptation of existing semantic data models for smart cities and regions; T3.2 Data ecosystem technical baseline; T3.3 Showcasing smart adapters for the integration of heterogeneous data; T3.4 Implementing data broker with standard APIs and supporting semantic modules; T3.5 Deployment of services for collaborative and trustworthy data spaces; T3.6 Establishing application market place with semantic matching; T3.7 Development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for decision making and planning support

T4.1 Dashboards development; T4.2 Resilience oriented innovations` system development; T4.3 Integration of smart innovations for energy transformation based on Positive Energy Districts (PED) concept; T4.4 Public infrastructure affordability improvement in the context of climate change; T4.5 Innovations for smart biodefense systém; T4.6 Development of innovative elements for smart urban mobility systems; T4.7 Integrated Smart Living Platform for smart public facilities and households management; T4.8 Development and customization of a E-platform for stakeholder engagement and participation; T4.9 Smartification of public infrastructure and buildings life-cycles

T5.1 Smart investment management of municipalities: developing complex investment strategies; T5.2 Smart investment management of municipalities: innovative instruments for green investments; T5.3 Smart investment management of municipalities: innovative instruments for investments in public infrastructure and housing development; T5.4 Smart investment management of municipalities: innovative procurement; T5.5 Creation of virtual smart cities platform; T5.6 Accelerating replication, commercialization and scale-up; T5.7 Finding new use-cases and business models

T6.1 Smart Ecovillage Horne Srnie; T6.2 Cedlio Slovak Biodefense Centre; T6.3 Block-chain Transformation Grid KEZMAROK; T6.4 Innovation ecosystem BBSK; T6.5 Green Campuses; T6.6 Territorial Data Center and TP Living Lab

T7.1 Development, testing and validation of training programs; T7.2 Development of shared smart development module for bc. and Msc. study programs (future capacities); T7.3 Development of Lifelong Learning courses and materials and Capacity Building Platform with Virtual Collaboration Environment and Open Education Resources - formal and non-formal education

T8.1 Extension and Participation Activities; T8.2 Communication and PR Activities; T8.3 Influencing and Policy Advocacy Activities; T8.4 Monitoring and Evaluation Activities; T8.5 Living Labs Scale up and Adaptation Activities; T8.6 Long-term Planning and Sustainable Activities

STICS Partneri

FUNDING

Funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project within the Smart Transformational and Innovation Consortium Slovakia (STICS) No. 09I02‑03‑V01‑00011.

ABOUT

Our mission

Management

Funding

OUR MISSION

STICS Launches an Open Innovation Ecosystem for Slovakia

MANAGEMENT

FUNDING

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