Smart Region Model: Institutional and Legal Coordination of City–Countryside–City Interaction in the Context of Germany’s Digital Transformation

• Applicant: Vitali Strilchuk, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Public Law
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 574522449

Digital Transformation of Spatial Development in Germany increasingly highlights the need for a comprehensive rethinking of the interaction between multi-level public authorities. This need is particularly acute in the context of city-village cooperation. At the regional level, the traditional paradigm of Smart City development–primarily focused on technocratic innovations in urban centers - reveals its limitations in the face of growing digital inequality, institutional fragmentation, and spatial asymmetry. Without close integration with the digital environments of cities, Smart Village initiatives remain peripheral and incapable of shaping a cohesive digital space. The absence of an integrated approach to digital regional planning exacerbates inter-municipal imbalances. The aim of the proposed research is to develop a coherent institutional and legal model of the Smart Region concept as a tool for ensuring spatial cohesion and sustainable development amid Germany’s digital transformation. The study focuses on improving the mechanisms of inter-municipal cooperation, enhancing the effectiveness of participatory democracy institutions, and developing approaches to the integration of strategic smart infrastructure planning at both the regional (Länder) and local (Kommunen) levels. The project is grounded in the analysis of relevant German and EU legal doctrine, the regulatory framework of the Federal Republic of Germany, EU legislation - including strategic planning documents - as well as municipal practices in this domain. It combines legal, public governance, institutional, socio-economic, and technological approaches. The methodological basis of the research integrates legal dogmatics with tools of interdisciplinary analysis, particularly from political science, public administration, and spatial planning. Special attention is given to comparative analysis and dialectical logic as tools for identifying contradictions and constructing systemic solutions. A methodological innovation of the study is the proposed three-component model of circular digital interaction - "city-village-city" - which enables the overcoming of the binary logic of "center-periphery" and treats territories at different levels as equal participants in spatial smart cooperation, contributing to the formation of sustainable smart regions. The outcome will be a scientific monograph that not only presents a conceptually coherent model of the Smart Region, but also serves as an applied instrument for promoting spatial cohesion, digital equity, and sustainable development in the Federal Republic of Germany.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position