The NSPA welcomes the European Commission's European Innovation Partnership Smart Cities and Communities initiative and stresses the importance of the rapid roll-out of Smart City applications and integrated solutions for energy, built environment, transport and horizontal ICT solutions. The NSPA regions and their cities are involved in various Smart City-type actions, to mention but a few:

• The city of Piteå (Sweden), which leads the development of future vehicle fuels in Sweden and is building the largest land based wind farm in Europe;
• The city of Östersund (Sweden), one of the three cities along a 450 kilometers fossil-fuel-free corridor between the Bothnian Sea and the Norwegian Sea;
• The sustainable Hiukkavaara district and the FP7 FIREBALL-project, City of Oulu (Finland)
• Digital Mikkeli and Mikkeli Smart City 2020 (Finland);
• The city of Bodø (Norway), with its distinguished green profile, exemplified with the ambition of making all public service cars electric.

Various NSPA cities are signatories of the Covenant of Mayors initiative and some NSPA regions have set up highly ambitious targets of becoming completely fossil fuel free (for example North Karelia by 2030). Universities, research institutes, enterprises and development agencies located in the NSPA regions are involved in various Smart City-type projects (EU and nationally funded) and are develop smart solutions and applications.

The NSPA supports the European Commission's European Innovation Partnership Smart Cities and Communities and is committed to working towards the goals laid out in its Strategic Implementation Plan and the Operational Implementation Plan.