A Smart University for a Smart City

The use of technological devices has changed the way individuals interact with their university environment and lives within it. This contribution focuses on the use of a smart context as a link between individuals and their university environment through an exemplification of the most urgent problems deriving from the different domains and technological systems, as well as of information and communication devices employed in university teaching-learning contexts, in order to improve the quality of higher education and individuals' cultural life. When the university becomes “smart”? The reply to this question must be supported by a rigorous critique studies. It is not sufficient that universities define themselves as smart places to underline the main challenges they must face in their efforts to become and remain smart. The article starts a reflection on what "being smart" means for universities and recognizes a university as a "smart" institution when it has its roots in the understanding and critical awareness of the basic knowledges, in the identification of the stronger and more realistic competencies and in the search for the meanings of a “smart university community” that pursues high quality. A smart learning, research and lifelong learning able to build quality policies promising an “interpretative framework” and a "smart context" for a funded learning to smart growth principles that may be helpful in suggesting the purchase of equipments, resources and investments usage and for the creation of more effective instructional methods, suitable for students and their needs to better integrate them into the community and society. However, this requires an extremely qualified empirical research, methodologically robust and inter-disciplinary, in order to understand the central traits and the real benefits of a smart university capable to pursue a high quality and able to sustain local university policies to satisfy the main territorial requests, but that at the same time is not neglecting the national and international dimensions, and can undertake appropriate decision-making processes as well as applying virtuous procedures to identify proper political instruments to positively influence the achievement of cultural objectives. This is clearly highlighting innovative perspectives and putting into play the building of a new culture at the core of a “smart university” and its cultural principles. The paper concludes with an account of the experience of the ICT Centre of the University of Ferrara, who try to achieve these goals. This implies the adoption of innovative perspectives and discuss the building of a new culture putting in the middle a "smart university" and its cultural principles. The contribution ends with the description of the ICT Centre at the University of Ferrara that is trying to pursue those goals.