Pre-Announcement call “Driving Urban Transitions – Sustainable future for cities”

24/04/2025

The Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) Partnership, funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Partnership, will fund a call for proposals to support transnational research and/or innovation projects addressing urban challenges to help cities in their transition towards a more sustainable economy and functioning. Nine topics will be available for applications (in two stages) predicted to start on 2 September 2024.

Deadline: Stage 1 – 14 November 2024 | Stage 2 – 24 April 2025

Rather than provide isolated technical solutions, funded projects are expected to address the topics in a systemic way. Project outcomes should be impact-oriented and process-oriented, and therefore as concrete and user-centred as possible.

The call is grouped in three areas (each with three topics):

A. Circular Urban Economies (CUE)

B. 15-minute City (15mC)

C. Positive Energy Districts (PED)

A. CIRCULAR URBAN ECONOMIES (CUE)

The CUE topics are focused around creating a new paradigm for urban water cycles; urban biodiversity and circular models for regeneration, repurposing, protection and conservation within urban space; as well as multi-city strategies for circular economy monitoring and management.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Insights for addressing and reshaping urban water management practices, with an emphasis on optimising water resource utilisation, water treatment facilities and water related climate adaptation and mitigation measures in the urban environment and on a water system level; ii) Producing measurable enhancements in the resilience, sustainability and adaptability of urban environments to water systems; iii) Delivering innovative solutions, best practices, and policy recommendations tailored to enhance the sustainability of water management in urban areas; iv) Building and extracting knowledge to build cross-border policies on urban water management practices, addressing different water management challenges exist in different climate zones in Europe.

Such outputs may manifest in various forms, including technical reports, policy briefs, toolkits and guidelines targeting practitioners and policymakers alike. These deliverables aim to equip stakeholders with actionable insights and strategies to effectively navigate the complexities of urban water management.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Contributing to paradigm level shifts in urban planning, design, architecture and landscape architecture towards a biocentric perspective, where urban areas and communities are further integrated into nature for sustainable socio-ecological balance across urban-rural gradients; ii) Strengthening urban biodiversity and ecosystem services through collaborative stakeholder engagement and widespread dissemination of findings for broader impact. Advocating for justice and equity in conservation and restoration initiatives, ensuring actions go beyond mere inclusion and explanation to citizens, and actively catalysing behavioural shifts favouring sustainable transitions. Highlighting the diverse values of urban renaturing and circular economy principles, including economic benefits alongside other values, such as environmental, social, and health advantages; iii) Projects are expected to create dissemination strategies of their project results for uptake by stakeholders (outcomes) to contribute to broader impact. Funded projects should strive to instigate profound changes in urban landscapes, fostering symbiotic relationships between human habitats and natural ecosystems while championing principles of justice, equity, and economic viability in urban biodiversity conservation.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Contributing to enhanced trust and collaboration among stakeholders through transparent sharing of resource flow-related data and ensuring long-term commitment to circular economy monitoring beyond project funding cycles; ii) Resulting in improved decision-making based on accessible and understandable data in the urban administrations involved in the project consortium and facilitating cross-city comparisons and best practice sharing; iii) Producing dissemination strategies and measurements for expanding impact, reflected in budgetary considerations as well as acknowledgements of the intricate steps involved in transitioning from data sharing to impactful scale-up, emphasising the need for dedicated resources and funding to bridge these gaps effectively.

B. 15-MINUTE CITY (15mC)

The 15mC topics are focused on innovations for inclusive and youth-centric mobility systems, system innovation and proximity policies for sustainable city-regions as well as evidence for the urban mobility transition through data and indicators for effective decision-making.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Overviews of good practice, policy recommendations and guidelines for innovative concepts and solutions to accelerate implementation of active and sustainable mobility modal use; ii) Strategies and frameworks for replication, knowledge-transfer and collaboration amongst stakeholders to speed up, expand and adapt proven methods for urban mobility transition; iii) Needs-oriented experience on ways to redefine school environments together with educational institutions, children and youth; iv) Analysis of impacts of implementation of 15-minute City concepts and related urban interventions on local populations, with particular attention to the phenomena of mobility poverty; v) Strategies to mitigate adverse consequences for vulnerable or marginalised communities; vi) Engagement of local stakeholders in definition of approaches in co-creative, experimental settings.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Development and application of conceptual frameworks to analyse and better understand urban mobility systems at the metropolitan level; ii) Strategies and instruments to assess, manage and monitor urban mobility from a systems perspective; iii) Lessons learnt from ambitious pilots and successful practices that demonstrate alternative development paths and planning approaches to steer city-regions towards sustainable (mobility) goals; iv) Analysis and results intended for transfer of existing approaches and embedded learnings on mobility strategies on level of a city-region and polycentric cities; v) Innovative approaches and solution for improving services to better adapt to individual needs; and vi) Elaboration of innovative governance structures, institutional arrangements and regulatory mechanisms to enhance coordinating and alignment efforts between levels of governance, existing planning instruments and further stakeholders.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Contribution to developing robust evidence for urban mobility transitions, including data collection, processing, management, documentation and visualization; ii) Enhanced knowledge on data gaps and availability, and improved methods for evidence-based governance, decision-making and monitoring, informed by needs and context of stakeholders; iii) Transfer of methods, learning and capacity building on data for the urban mobility transition in cities of different sizes and contexts; iv) Recommendations on effective decision-making based on qualified data; v) Scoping and experimentation with collaborative models and innovative solutions to collect and share data in practice with relevant stakeholders; vi) Approaches to link and complement data on mobility and transport with tools and experience from other related sectors; vii) Further insights, methodologies and models to take on scope 3 of GHG emissions for the transport sector, and linked potential effects of a respective policy focus; and viii) Indicators and tools on dynamics between mobility and planning policies, and (in)equality on a neighbourhood level.

C. POSITIVE ENERGY DISTRICTS (PED)

The PED topics focus on multi-level perspectives of PED development, management of different solutions within a city, as well as data management and decision support systems. For topics with a stronger technological focus, the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CET Partnership) Call 2024 is recommended.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Analysis of framework conditions on local, national and European levels in the context of this topic in terms of challenges, barriers and success factors; ii) Analysis of the relevant stakeholder ecosystem, a methodology on how to engage key stakeholders and how to align their efforts with each other and the overall climate ambitions; iii) Modelling and developing viable scenarios of PED development in a multi-level perspective based on analysis of existing approaches and existing urban contexts; iv) Modelling and developing viable scenarios for public-private and public-public partnerships to finance the needed transition; v) Modelling of innovative approaches on how to decrease socio-economic inequalities in PEDs; vi) Demonstration of viability of these models, including qualitative and quantitative arguments; vii) Evaluation of added value and impact of suggested approaches and models; and viii) Recommendations and guidelines for mainstreaming, considering geographical and cultural context, as well as social and regulatory aspects.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Analysis of framework conditions in the context of this topic in terms of challenges, barriers and success factors; ii) Analysis of the relevant stakeholder ecosystem, a methodology on how to engage key stakeholders and how to align their efforts with each other and the overall climate ambitions; iii) Modelling for decision-making parameters and viable scenarios of managing different PEDs within a city; iv) Modelling and developing viable scenarios of system integration approaches; v) Demonstration of viability of these models, including qualitative and quantitative arguments; vi) Evaluation of added value and impact of suggested approaches and models; vii) Recommendations and guidelines on how to integrate energy planning with urban planning; and viii) Recommendations and guidelines for mainstreaming, considering geographical and cultural context, as well as social and regulatory aspects.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes: i) Identification of gaps, key challenges, barriers and success factors regarding data collection and data access related in and around PED; ii) Modelling and prototyping of PED data management systems, tools and decision support systems for urban energy and spatial planning that allow for a holistic analysis of urban transitions, also taking account of the mobility system, resource flows, and other aspects; iii) Modelling and prototyping of data management systems, tools and decision support systems for urban energy and spatial planning, including but not limited to solutions linking PEDs with city-wide processes and instruments, approaches for continuous updating and quality management as well as considerations of legal and regulatory challenges and potentials of data availability and data use; iv) Demonstration of the viability and applicability of PED data management models and approaches (especially in terms of scalability, technology openness and flexible integration); v) Evaluation of the added value and impact of PED data management models and approaches, regarding the facilitation of decision-making processes, in terms of acceptance, usability, and quality of achieved decisions; and vi) Recommendations and guidelines for mainstreaming and replication, considering geographical and cultural context, as well as social and regulatory aspects.

If you are considering applying, an online Info Day about this call is scheduled for 10 September 2024. You should register on the DUT matchmaking platform to get access to the information sessions and other events. In addition, if you are looking for partners, on this platform, you can add a cooperation opportunity by describing your project idea, aim, expertise, and type of partner sought. You can also browse cooperation opportunities published by others.

Once the call is open, CESAM will disclose it through the weekly newsletter.