Chiara Garau

Chiara Garau is an associate professor in the Scientific Disciplinary Sector ICAR/20 (Urban and Regional Planning) at the University of Cagliari (Department of Civil Environmental Engineering and Architecture, DICAAR). From 2015 to 2019 she was Principal Investigator of the international project Governing the smart city: a governance-centred approach to smart urbanism, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research MIUR through the SIR call proposal – Scientific independence of young researchers , Domain SH.

She is graduated in Architectural Engineering (2003) and in Communication Science (2013) both with 110/110 summa cum laude (equivalent to First class honours). Since then, she has actively continued post graduate research, holding a II level University Master Degree in Business Intelligence (December 2005), and a PhD in Land Engineering and Urban Planning (January 2008).

From 2012 to 2015, she was an honorary fellow in the Scientific Disciplinary Sector ICAR/20 (Urban and Regional Planning). She was a member of the scientific and organizing committee of the YA AESOP (Young Academics – Association of European Schools of Planning [2011 -2013]); she was a scientific and technical adviser to Observatory Smart Cities of Rome (2013-2014) and she held several postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Cagliari (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture-DICAAR).

She was also selected by Regional Studies Association (RSA) and by the Committee of the Regions (CoR) to be part of the OPEN DAYS 2014 UNIVERSITY MASTER CLASS (ODU-MC) on EU cohesion policy.

In June 2015 she obtained the Best paper award at ICCSA 2015 with the manuscript entitled “Benchmarking Smart Urban Mobility: A Study on Italian Cities“, co-authored with Francesco Pinna, and Francesca Masala.

She was also selected as international scientist by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to be part of the programme “Science Tour 2016: City of the Future – Research for Sustainable Urban Development” (Germany, 31 January-5 February 2016).

In March 2017 she obtained the national scientific qualification as Associate Professor for the Scientific Disciplinary Sector ICAR/20 (Urban and Regional Planning).

In May 2019 she was recognised as a high-level academic by the European Commission’s Directorate – General for Regional and Urban policy and she was selected by the European Community to be part – the only representative for Italy – of the project evaluation jury RegioStars 2019 together with great experts and academics in the field of smart cities.

In 2020 she was visiting professor at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Urban Science and Design (CASUS) research centre, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Currently, she is guest editor of the following special issues: Smart Cities 3.0: Citizens, Space and Sustainable Mobility for the Future City in Sustainability; Technologies and Humanities for Smart Cities in Urban Science; Space Syntax and the Sustainable City: Theory, Methods and Applications in Sustainability; “Paving the way towards the development of a smart and blue city – Policies and Practices” in Journal of Urban Planning and Development.

She is a member of the scientific and/or organizational international committee of the following scientific communities:

1. ICCSA https://iccsa.org/;

2. INCODTRIN https://incodtrin.com/committees;

3. Smart blue cities, https://www.smartbluecity.com/scientific-committee;

4. REAL CORP [http://www.corp.at];

5. EAI [European Alliance for Innovation] SmartGov https://smart-governance.eai-conferences.org/2020/technical-program-committee/.

Over the years she has been a reviewer for financing international projects, among which, the European Research Council Executive Agency’s commissioned the evaluation of a project proposal under the ERC Starting Grant – Call 2020.

Her main research interests are focused on issues of the Scientific Disciplinary Sector of Urban and Regional Planning, particularly on smart cities; participatory processes; cultural heritage; urban governance and urban policies.

A referee of international scientific journals, she is author of over 100 scientific publications, including monographs, conference proceedings, articles in books, national and international journals.