The Smart City Expo World Congress, held this year from November 4-6 in Barcelona, is the world’s biggest and most influential event for cities and urban innovation Bringing together a diverse global community of industry executives, government leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs, and urban visionaries, the congress serves as a premier platform to address complex issues to move cities toward a brighter future. This year’s event welcomed over 27,000 attendees from more than 140 countries around the globe, featuring over 1,150 exhibitors, nearly 600 speakers, and representatives from more than 850 cities.

In this year’s edition, IREC participated with a booth at the Catalonia Pavilion, where the Corporate Development and Tech Transfer department received delegations from Ukraine, Hannover, Japan and other regions, as well as the visit from the “Secretari General del Departament de Recerca i Universitats”, Oriol Escardibul, and the “Director General de Transferència”, Javier Selva.  Throughout these three days, the KTT team actively engaged with national contact points as well as international experts in the smart city industry and with public entities at the booth. These interactions fostered meaningful exchanges and potential collaborations, reinforcing the team’s commitment to advancing sustainable energy solutions and smart urban systems that contribute to more resilient and efficient cities.

Additionally, IREC researchers contributed to several sessions throughout the congress. Mikel Fadul from the Energy System Analytics department and Thibault Péan from the REACT department presented at the Agora space in the Catalonia Stand and talked about smarts grids and its environmental footprint and ALMMA, algorithms for the monitoring and management of HVAC Systems, respectively. In a parallel session, the Making PEDs project, coordinated by IREC, was featured in the session “How R&I Helps Cities Transform” at the Smart Cities Market Place, where Jaume Salom also participated in another panel titled “Tools and processes to facilitate urban regeneration”, highlighting the ARV project results. Moreover, he showcased the VR tool developed in the framwork of the ARV project at IREC’s booth.

The Barcelona Deep Tech Summit took place in Hall 3, where IREC researchers participated in the Investment Day organised by H2CAT. Rossana Boccia from the Energy Storage, Harvesting and Catalysis department presented Autometh, a methanation technology for sustainable biogas utilisation, and Juande Sirvent, from the Nanoionics and Fuel Cells department, also participated in the event, presenting Oxhyd, a start-up that develops high power fuel cells for heavy mobility and carbon-intensive industries.

Lastly, Joana Ortiz from the REACT presented the citizen science project, Heat Watchers in Action, during the policy panel “Accelerating SDG Action with User-Driven Earth Observation: The SDGs-EYES Way”.

IREC’s involvement in this year’s Smart City Expo World Congress underscores its commitment to pioneering sustainable solutions that shape resilient cities and buildings for today.