Mission: Climate neutral and smart cities (Horizon Europe)

HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-01: Urban planning and design for just, sustainable, resilient and climate-neutral cities by 2030

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• Contribution to the implementation of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, the Zero Pollution Action Plan, the Biodiversity Strategy, Fit for 55 Strategy, Circular Economy Action Plan, the Urban Agenda for the EU, the New Leipzig Charter, the European partnership on Driving Urban Transitions for a sustainable future (DUT) and the New European Bauhaus Initiative, in line with the European Green Deal ambition and objectives;
• Transparent and efficient decision-making processes for people-centric urban planning and design for climate neutral cities achieved through innovative collaborative methods such as co-creation, living labs, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, collective intelligence and collaborative economy in combination with technological innovations, data-driven approaches and enhanced cross-sectoral integration;
• Effective management of trade-offs and ownership of transformative changes through the engagement and empowerment of stakeholders, citizens and inhabitants, paying special attention to vulnerable and at-risk for precarity social groups and communities, including people with disabilities, older people and youth;
• Innovative urban planning and design practices, harnessing, compiling and mainstreaming local knowledge, creativity, ingenuity and design quality, triggering behavioural and lifestyles changes and fostering co-created approaches, holistic responses to interlinked challenges within a city, and effective use of digital tools, such as Digital Twins, for solutions drawing on cross-domain data e.g. through data shared via data space for smart communities and sectoral data spaces;
• Solutions that ensure a more equitable, just, synergetic and optimal use of urban spaces integrating well-balanced built/green/blue/accessible infrastructures and biodiversity-friendly nature-based solutions for attractive, circular, healthy, resilient, secure and liveable cities with thriving citizens, communities, ecosystems and biodiversity and reduced urban environmental footprint.

Budget: 35 MEUR

Vollen Topic Text im Funding & Tenders Portal der Europäischen Kommission finden Sie hier.

HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-02: Unleashing the innovation potential of public transport as backbone of urban mobility

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Contribute to the objectives of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission by accelerating the transition towards climate neutrality in cities;
• Develop and implement a convincing approach to explore, test and evaluate the resilience and adaptability of urban public transport and promote its accrued use in line with the priorities of the European Green Deal, as part of the wider integrated urban and peri-urban mobility system;
• Using innovative co-creation methods involving a wide range of stakeholders (e.g. public transport employees, passengers, the city authority), improve the overall public transport offer and its attractiveness in line with users’ needs and expectations, including affordability, inclusiveness and ensuring equal access for reduced mobility;
• Using simulation tools and data, understand and trigger behaviour change in favour of public transport;
• Understand dependencies between public transport and active travel modes including requirements towards multi-modal hubs and access-infrastructures;
• Increase the share of public transport (modal split) in the modal distribution of motorized transportation by approximately 30% 285 in the cities involved in the projects 286 compared to their baseline at the start of the project and cover different market/customer segments, aiming at catering for specific needs of specific target groups, e.g. a better social inclusion and healthier lifestyles, envisioning a social optimum and the concept of Mobility as a Right;
• Increase user satisfaction with public transport by 25% compared to the baseline;
• Identify lessons and mutual learning at European level facilitating replication, upscaling and up-taking of the tested blueprints;
• Put in place or update a local policy framework for public transport, in line with the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) guidelines and spatial planning, including clear commitments from the relevant authorities to implement it in the short and medium term.

Budget: 40 MEUR

Vollen Topic Text im Funding & Tenders Portal der Europäischen Kommission finden Sie hier.

HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-03: Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) for the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Platform

The Framework Partnership Agreement is expected to create the framework conditions and engage the needed competencies to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Operation of a fully functional Mission Platform that provides a wide range of tailor-made services to up to 150 cities participating in the Mission. Services cover technical, regulatory, financial and socio-economic expertise as well as assistance for developing and implementing the CCC and should complement and scale-up existing services developed by the project funded under the Horizon 2020 Green Deal call topic LC-GD-1-2-2020: Towards climate-neutral and socially innovative cities.
• Consolidated science-based indicators and a common monitoring, reporting and verification framework for the cities participating in the Mission. This should build upon existing methodologies, including those already developed in the action funded through the Horizon 2020 Green Deal call topic LC-GD-1-2-2020, while ensuring coherent use and reporting regularly on the progress of cities towards the CCC.
• Smart and customised access for cities to the best available research, expertise, tools and technologies that can enable them to quickly identify and implement portfolios of innovative, high-impact interventions on a deep decarbonisation pathway.
• Establish and follow a common CCC process for the cities participating in the Mission. Share experiences and good practices and engage in mutual learning, including through twinning opportunities open to a wide spectrum of cities such as those in disadvantaged and peripheral regions.
• Calls for proposals are launched to support large-scale pilots for the deployment in participating Mission cities of systemic solutions working across functional silos and thematic areas (mobility, energy systems, built environment, industry, SMEs, material and resource flows, natural areas and nature-based solutins, cultural/social/financial/institutional systems, and accessible public spaces), in support of transforming systems.
• Web-based services and assistance to cities that are not yet in a position to commit to climate neutrality by 2030, but are ready to commit to accelerate their transition to climate neutrality in line with the Cities Mission principles. These cities will have the option to co-create a CCC with all stakeholders that will commit the city to undertake in a systemic way all actions needed for reaching climate neutrality in the period 2030-2035.
• Close coordination with the European Commission to ensure that advice and support provided to cities remains aligned to the latest policies and initiatives and makes full use of available tools and services provided or supported by the Commission.

Vollen Topic Text im Funding & Tenders Portal der Europäischen Kommission finden Sie hier.

HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-04: Positive Clean Energy Districts

Expected Outcome: Projects are expected to contribute to all the following outcomes:

• Contribute to the objectives of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission by accelerating the transition towards climate neutrality in cities;
• Large-scale demonstration and implementation of Positive Clean Energy Districts to prove their feasibility and cost-effectiveness in a real world environment, i.e. they will be fully integrated in the city context at all levels;
• Projects will be at district (project defined) scale and will have long-term strategies that address the (at times conflicting) needs and requirements of inhabitants, energy, mobility (both passenger mobility and freight transport), ICT and environment at district scale 294 in order to make cities more liveable, healthier, resource efficient and climate-neutral. Projects will include different social and economic areas at the district level;
• Collaborative structures that bring together all important actors needed to realize Positive Clean Energy Districts, i.e. cities/metropolitan areas, industry/SMEs, property developers/financial actors, R&I organisations, energy service providers, citizens associations, energy agencies, etc. They will closely collaborate among each other and with the Horizon 2020 Smart Cities and Communities Lighthouse projects cluster, the supporting SCALE service contract and the Smart Cities Marketplace;
• Widening and consolidating the Positive Clean Energy cluster of practitioners and strengthened links with financial actors enabling the mid-term Europe-wide uptake of tested solutions for Positive Clean Energy Districts;
• Paradigm shift from demonstration project to mainstreamed long-term city transformation;
• Evidence of decreased investment risk for - and acceleration of - the rollout of Positive Clean Energy Districts;
• Well-proven and documented packaged solutions that lower the entry barrier, create trust and shape the market, ultimately leading to further large-scale investment;
• City alliances that include also small and very small cities as well as cities in less developed and peripheral regions - to enhance opportunities for accessing knowledge, technology and funding, and in turn provide a factual contribution toward meeting the climate targets.

Budget: 40 MEUR

Vollen Topic Text im Funding & Tenders Portal der Europäischen Kommission finden Sie hier.

HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-05: Global cooperation and exchange on urban climate neutrality

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Facilitate the management and transfer of global knowledge on the topic of climate action in cities, helping cities move closer to climate neutrality;
• Increase the visibility of the EU and its cities as frontrunners and collaboration-minded partners in urban climate action;
• Contribute to the implementation of EU policy and international commitment (European Green Deal, Global Approach to Research and Innovation).

Budget: 2 MEUR

Vollen Topic Text im Funding & Tenders Portal der Europäischen Kommission finden Sie hier.

Vollen Text zu Missions in Horizon Europe (2021-2022) finden Sie hier.