Today is the last funded day of the Progcity project. Hard to believe that is five years since we started the research. It’s been a very fruitful endeavour and has fostered some very productive collaborations between the 16 researchers who have worked on the project at some point during it’s lifetime, producing a rich array of empirical material and an extensive range of published outputs, numerous presentations, an archive of over 150 videos from our seminars and workshops, and the Dublin Dashboard. The work, of course, will not stop, with the doctoral students to submit their theses and more books and papers to be written, and we’ll continue to maintain this blog and social media. In due course we hope to archive all of the c.500 interviews we have conducted and other research material so that others can re-use and mine our data. In addition, the research helped form the basis for a new SFI-funded investigator project, Building City Dashboards.

The main thing I wish to do at this point is to put some thank yous on the record.

First, I would like to thank the whole Progcity team – all the doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers and Rhona, the project administrator, who kept us on the bureaucratic straight-and-narrow. It has been a real pleasure to work with and learn from you all – hopefully Progcity has contributed to positively to your future careers and will continue to do so. Also, thanks to Chris, Aphra and Leighton who have co-supervised the doctoral students and contributed to the research.

Second, thanks to all the folks who took part in our fieldwork and interviews for sharing their expertise, insights and time. The kind of in-depth case studies we have been undertaking can only yield valuable ideas and knowledge through the generosity of participants and it has been really fascinating to listen to and work with you all, and learn from and translate your experiences and viewpoints.

Third, thanks to all those who helped facilitate the research at different sites, especially the Smart Dublin team, who have been a tremendous help. Conducting fieldwork is always reliant on the aid and goodwill of many people and we’ve been very fortunate across all our sub-projects to receive sound advice and practical help.

Fourth, thanks to all the admin staff in MUSSI, the university and the ERC who have helped us to administer the project. Running large EU-funded projects comes with a fairly sizable bureaucratic overhead and we have benefited from useful feedback and help over the life of Progcity.

Fifth, I am very grateful to other researchers in the university and the broader academic community who have taken an interest in the Progcity project – attending our seminars and workshops and discussing our research at events and via email/social media. Research is always a collaborative effort of dialogue and exchange and we have been very fortunate to interact with a very generous set of scholars. Hopefully your own research, like ours, is richer from our encounters and we’ll continue to learn from each other.

I am sure I have missed folks out that deserve our gratitude, so apologies if that’s the case, but rest assured your contributions have been appreciated.

While ‘officially’ we have reached the end of the road for Progcity, there’s a lot more paths to travel yet, so please continue to stop by the site as we keep producing outputs stamped with the ‘This research was funded by an ERC advanced investigator award, The Programmable City (ERC-2012-AdG-323636).’

Rob Kitchin