On 29 October 2023, Living-in.EU took part in the Eurocities Digital Forum, an annual conference that gathers international officers and digital experts from the major European cities. The conference, on the theme “Cities to make it happen. Cities as a driver of Europe’s digital and green transformation” discussed how to make the most of digital transformation to tackle the challenges of today, and those of tomorrow. Lucia Garrido, Eurocities writer, reported on the conference; interesting insights can be found here.  

In that occasion, Living-in.EU presented for the first time LORDIMAS, an assessment tool based on the Local and Regional Digital Indicators framework (LORDI) which will support cities, regions and communities across Europe to measure their digital maturity and share knowledge, best practices and contribute to a wider level of understanding of the local impact of digitalisation.  

LORDIMAS: your digital maturity assessment  

Presented by Rodolphe Doite, project manager at ERRIN, LORDIMAS is an interactive tool that can help local and regional governments understand where they are in their digital transformation journey.  

Developed in the framework of the Monitoring & Measuring subgroup in Living-in.EU, It is designed as a living tool that would not only allow local and regional governments to assess their digital maturity but also to compare it with other administrations across Europe, sharing and accessing a repository of good practices and learnings about relevant policy recommendations.  

How will it work?  

LORDIMAS will be soon made available online to both Living-in.EU signatories and to the entire spectrum of local, regional and national European authorities.  

Divided into seven sections, It will guide Digital officers and data managers to assess cities and regions digital maturity via the 29 local and regional digital indicators. The survey is designed as a living tool, to be filled out once per year. It will be downloadable and translated into all EU languages.  

Why is LORDIMAS useful for cities, regions, and communities across Europe?  

As presented by Pieter-Jan Pauwels, Digital Innovation Lead at the city of Ghent, “LORDIMAS  helps us to find focus, diverge and connect digital objectives rather than to converge into generic digital roadmaps”. 

Pieter-Jan Pauwels had the opportunity to test LORDIMAS BETA version and explore the benefits for the city of Ghent. He found that this tool can support cities and regions on four levels:  

• It offers a moment of reflection on key digital challenges and priorities. It also includes a glossary to make sure to align understanding about key concepts around smart cities and data strategies. 

• It gives cities and regions the opportunity to get insights into their own efforts.

• It allows benchlearning from other realities across Europe.  

• It is interactive and actionable. 

The knowledge is within cities; gathering and sharing such knowledge is what LORDIMAS is about.  

The Living-in.EU Movement is committed to supporting cities, regions and communities in their digital transformation journeys.  

LORDIMAS can help in such transition, allowing them to assess their own digital path and challenges, benchmarking it with other authorities across Europe, and most importantly, intervening and acting with the support of policy recommendations and best practices.  

LORDIMAS will be soon published online and officially presented during the Smart City Expo in Barcelona 2023. It will be soon published on the Living-in.EU website. 

Check the tool here!