Smart university: the sustainable vector of knowledge

The term smart has been increasingly used to refer to a process of rethinking and modernization in different areas and contexts, covering the use of innovative technology solutions,sharing networks and data, and access to goods and services.That’s all feasible thanks to multi-stakeholder participation at different levels, and access through the use of ICT. In the definitionadopted in January 2014, the Committee on Industry, Researchand Energy (ITRE) Committee of the European Parliament, has defined a Smart City as “a city seeking to address public issues via ICT based solutions on the basis of a multi-stakeholder, municipallybased partnership”. That definition is lacking of a crucial concept. It is scientifically incorrect to define “smart” any human expressionin perspective without referring to sustainability. Smart means,therefore, sustainable. This work highlights the close link betweensmart university and sustainability. In a parallel with smart grids, smart mobility, and Smart Cities, university, through the smartification of its essential components can be much more sustainable when evolvedinto a distance learning, networked and connected smart universitycompared to “traditional” fully physical university. Smart universityshares physical elements, needs and moves less mass, being in one word, more efficient. As well as from the energy point of view, a sustainable future can be defined as the “Era of energy vectors” in which “an energy vector allows transfer, in space and time, a given quantity of energy, hence making it available for use distantly in time and space from the point of availability of the original source”, from a knowledge point of view, smart university allows to transfer, in space and time, a given knowledge, hence making it available for use distantly in time and space from the point of availability of the originalsource. The aim of developing a sustainable society is a very strongdriver towards the smartification of education and research, and the Smart university considered as a sustainable vector of knowledge is the key factor for its realization