**1. Introduction**

Smart, sustainable, and knowledge-based urban development (KBUD) is the catchphrase of our time, as the whole world struggles with climate, pandemic, and financial emergencies [1,2]. Particularly, in the case of emerging economies, this has had a severe impact for Brazil, among others [3–5]. In this case report, we placed an emerging innovation capital of Brazil, namely Florianópolis, under the microscope to generate insights for determining effective and efficient strategies to increase sustainability and innovation capabilities of cities to achieve long-term desired urban outcomes in the age of climate, pandemic, and financial catastrophes.

Florianópolis is the capital of the Brazilian southern state of Santa Catarina. Mostly located in the Santa Catarina Island, Florianópolis has a population of approximately half a million inhabitants [6], a per capita GDP of R 40,162 (around USD 7452) [7] and a Human Development Index of 0.847, the third best city in Brazil [8]. Thanks to its coastal and isolated nature and subtropical climate, the city is a popular tourist destination for both Brazilians and South American travelers.

Around the 1980s, the city started looking for alternatives to tackle its evident economic growth limitations. As its territory is mostly insular, Florianópolis could only offer employment in the public, retail, fishing, and tourism sectors, as industrial developments were, and still are, strictly forbidden by environmental regulations. Through federal, state, and municipal incentives, and taking advantage of the presence of high-quality universities, mostly focused on engineering, the technology sector was established as a viable form of development that coupled with environmental concerns while bringing high added value and generating employment and income. In these circumstances, in the 1980s, two important institutions were founded in Florianópolis to foster an ecosystem of technology and innovation, i.e., Centers of Reference in Innovative Technologies Foundation (CERTI) and the Technology Association of Santa Catarina (ACATE).

During the 1990s, a significant number of software companies, a technological park, ParqTec Alfa, and two incubators, CELTA and MIDI, were established in Florianópolis. A few years later, in 2006, an innovation center, named Sapiens Park, was established in the city as a joint initiative from the state government and the CERTI Foundation. As a result of the joint efforts conducted by the state and city government, universities and entrepreneurs, the city successfully established itself as an innovation center in the late 2000s, thus, recognized both in Brazil and abroad. Currently, the technology sector in Florianópolis generates over R 4.3 billion (around USD 798 million) in revenue per year and employs more than 17,000 people [9]. According to the 2020 edition of the Connected Smart Cities Ranking, which maps the cities with the greatest development potential in Brazil, Florianópolis was ranked as the second most intelligent and connected city in the country [10]. The city won third place in the economy category, in addition to fourth place in the technology and innovation category, fifth place in mobility and accessibility, seventh place in entrepreneurship and health, and 10th in security in the same ranking [10]. Florianópolis was also ranked as the second best entrepreneurial ecosystem amongst the major cities in Brazil, according to the Entrepreneur Cities Index [11].

Local tax exemptions and incentives and public policy programs set up by the Municipal Law of Innovation, issued in 2012, have played, and still play, an important role in Florianópolis economic transition to technology and innovation. A Municipal Innovation Council (CMI) was established as the main managing body of innovation policy and, since 2007, the city mobilized the local innovation ecosystem through the so-called "Innovation Promotion Arrangements (API)", aimed to fund selected projects with both public and private resources, including the Municipal Innovation Fund and the Tax Incentive Program for Innovation. Correspondingly, the local government mapped out a "Route of Innovation", in order to identify and interconnect the city's innovation and technology strategic points as a means to present and promote Florianópolis' innovation ecosystem through a roadmap, extending from the city center to the North of the island. The "Route of Innovation" also aims to connect government, academia, companies, and the community in general, to leverage the entrepreneurial and innovative potential of all actors involved [12].

Recently, two major events have marked Florianópolis, also known as Floripa, development towards a more sustainable city, the new operation of the Florianópolis International Airport and the reopening of the Hercílio Luz Bridge. The Floripa Airport has been managed by a company that also manages Zurich Airport, assuming the city's international airport operations for a period of 30 years and investing in the construction of a new passenger's terminal, inaugurated in 2019. Additionally, the iconic Hercílio Luz Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in Brazil and the first link from Santa Catarina island to the mainland, was restored and reopened to the public on 30 December 2019 after 28 years of closure.

In this context, a research project named the "Smart Floripa Project" was developed between 2018 and 2019 in order to determine whether or not, and to what extent, the KBUD framework could contribute to transform Florianópolis into a smart city of innovation by 2030. The Smart Floripa Project was promoted as a joint effort of a set of institutions, including the Federal University of Santa Catarina, the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo, the Queensland University of Technology, Fecomércio SC, Senac SC, the Brazilian Association of Software Companies, the Lixo Zero Brasil Institute, the Government of the State of Santa Catarina, and the Municipality of Florianópolis.

The investigation was developed as a qualitative study, with surveys and in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders engaged in the city's innovation ecosystem. The results, as indicated below, revealed that Florianópolis' potential for innovation stemmed from its natural, human, social, and intellectual characteristics, and the main obstacles opposing the city's ambition to become a smart city of innovation stemmed from significant political and governance gaps [13–15].

These political and governance gaps consist, first, of an alarming lack of experience in evidence-based public policymaking amongst all the city's stakeholders. As a result, decision-making processes do not rely on concrete data or scientific evidence, which, bottom line, leads to poor quality and unsustainable public policies, as both public and private managers lack the knowledge and consistent data on sustainable urban development opportunities and challenges [16]. In other words, the city needs to establish a support model for public policy decision making, which could be provided by the KBUD framework.

Finally, Florianópolis needs to balance its innovative ambition with sustainable urban development standards, especially in regards to social equity and environmental protection. In this case, it must be explored whether or not KBUD can articulate these elements and what the existing benchmarks and references are in the matter. In this setting, this paper aims to collect inputs and reflections for the drafting of evidence-based public policies in favor of Florianópolis' ambition to become a smart city of innovation within sustainable development standards, that is, balancing economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental protection through technology and innovation.
