Imagine your city collects tons of data — traffic, air quality, energy use — but regular people have no idea what's happening or how to have a say. GEO-C trained 15 PhD researchers across Europe to build tools that let cities share this data openly and let residents actually participate in decisions. They created an Open City Toolkit — basically a ready-made software package cities can plug in to run smarter, more transparent services. Three cities (Münster, Castellón, Lisbon) were directly involved in testing these tools.
Cities collect massive amounts of urban data but lack ready-made tools to share it transparently with residents and let them participate in city decisions. Most smart city platforms are top-down and proprietary, leaving citizens as passive consumers of services rather than active participants. Municipalities need affordable, adaptable software to bridge this gap without building everything from scratch.
The project produced an Open City Toolkit prototype — a collection of open-source software, libraries, apps, and methods for enabling citizen participation, quality-of-life assessment, and transparent urban service delivery. A total of 8 deliverables were completed, with the toolkit prototype published publicly on the project website.
If you are a smart city technology company struggling to offer citizen engagement features alongside your data dashboards — this project developed an Open City Toolkit prototype with open-source apps, libraries, and software components that cities can adopt to set up key urban services. The toolkit was tested with 3 city councils and built by a consortium of 13 partners including 5 industry players.
If you are an urban planning firm advising cities on how to make data-driven decisions while keeping citizens involved — GEO-C produced methods and tools for assessing quality of life and enabling participation across all age groups. The open-source toolkit lets you offer cities a ready-made platform rather than building from scratch.
If you are a GIS company looking to expand into the smart city market — this project developed geoinformatics-based tools covering spatial learning, geostatistics, and geographic information processing for urban environments. With 15 trained PhD specialists and open-source code, there is a talent pool and a technology base you can build commercial products on.
The Open City Toolkit is open-source and was published on the project website (geo-c.eu), so the software itself is free to use. Implementation costs would depend on your city's infrastructure and customization needs. No commercial pricing model was established during the project.
The toolkit was developed and tested in collaboration with 3 city councils (Münster, Castellón, Lisbon), which range from mid-size to large European cities. Based on available project data, the prototype was demonstrated but large-scale deployment metrics are not documented.
The project was built around open source, open data, and open city principles. The toolkit and its components are publicly released. This means you can adopt and adapt the tools without licensing fees, but it also means competitors have the same access.
The toolkit was designed as modular software — apps, libraries, and components that cities can set up or adapt for key services. Based on available project data, integration with specific legacy systems would require custom work, but the modular design supports flexibility.
The consortium included 13 partners across 4 countries, with 5 industry partners and 2 SMEs. The University of Münster coordinated. The 15 PhD researchers trained through this program are specialists in open city geoinformatics and could be recruited or contracted for implementation support.
The project ended in December 2018 and delivered 8 outputs including a public Open City Toolkit prototype. As a Marie Curie doctoral training network, the primary output was trained researchers rather than a commercial product. The toolkit may require updates for current deployment.
The GEO-C consortium brings together 13 partners from 4 countries with a balanced mix of 5 universities and 5 industry players plus 3 other organizations. The 38% industry ratio is solid for an academic training program, and the inclusion of 2 SMEs shows some commercial grounding. However, this was fundamentally a Marie Curie doctoral training network — meaning the consortium was built to train researchers, not to bring a product to market. The involvement of 3 city councils as associated partners adds practical relevance, but the commercial pathway remains undeveloped.
The coordinator is at the University of Münster (Germany). SciTransfer can locate the project lead and facilitate an introduction.
Want to explore the Open City Toolkit for your municipality or smart city product? SciTransfer can connect you with the research team and assess fit for your use case.
