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Call key data
European Urban Initiative - Innovative Actions - 2nd Call
Funding Program
European Urban Initiative - Innovative Actions
Call number
EUI-IA-2023-02
deadlines
Opening
31.05.2023
Deadline
05.10.2023 14:00
Funding rate
80 %
Call budget
€ 120,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
max. € 5,000,000.00 ERDF co-financing
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
With an indicative budget of EUR 120 million ERDF, the second Call for Proposals of EUI - Innovative Actions is targeting innovative projects focusing on the three topics: Greening cities, Sustainable tourism and Harnessing talent in shrinking cities.
Call objectives
Topic 2: Sustainable tourism
Under the topic ‘Sustainable tourism’, projects will be funded to support the long-term green and digital transformation and resilience of the tourism ecosystem. By introducing unique solutions and comprehensive policies for the promotion and management of sustainable tourism, cities can set an example for smaller towns, villages and regions that are more dependent on tourism for their economy, particularly in terms of reducing overdependence on a single sector and combining tourism economic activities with other investments and job creation efforts for diversification to other sectors.
Topic 3: Harnessing talent in shrinking cities
Under the topic ‘Harnessing talent in shrinking cities’, particularly in the above-mentioned regions identified by the European Commission in the Communication ‘Harnessing talent in Europe’s regions’, will be supported to test new solutions to retain and attract talent. The call is seeking to identify placed-based and integrated pilot projects, i.e. involving local communities in experimentations at the urban scale and addressing the economic, social and environmental dimensions of the faced demographic challenges, in a way that could inspire the use of Cohesion policy programmes in these urban areas.
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Expected results
- Developing and enhancing urban green spaces by focusing on projects that contribute to halting biodiversity loss, to verifiably and significantly reducing air pollution and to combatting heat waves, and at the same time, to achieving climate objectives and improving health and well-being of citizens.
- Constructing green mobility corridors with the help of green infrastructure within urban areas and between urban centres and peri-urban areas that contribute to reducing air and soil pollution and noise, using artificial intelligence for traffic management systems, promoting sustainable multimodal urban mobility including active mobility modes such as cycling, and at the same time, to achieving climate objectives and improving health and well-being of citizens.
- Preventing droughts and flooding via projects that focus on sustainable water management, including rainwater, in urban areas, with the help of green infrastructure that contribute to preventing droughts and flooding as well as to improving water quality, and at the same time, to reducing disaster risks and land take.
- Designing and renovating buildings and their surrounding areas, particularly in socially deprived quarters with nature-based solutions by integrating green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in the design and/or renovation of buildings and in their surrounding areas, including efficient resource management, also by using recycled construction material. Such solutions should improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions of buildings, further contribute to achieving climate objectives through e.g. provision of climate adaptation and carbon storage and sequestration opportunities.
Topic 2: Sustainable tourism
- Diversifying the tourism product towards varied forms of smart, sustainable and accessible tourism, digitising tourism services, expanding its geographical and seasonal outreach for a more balanced annual economic and cultural cycle, and catering to a wider range of types of visitors, as well as contributing to the livelihoods of local communities.
- Driving the green and digital transformation of the tourism sector within the urban setting, including the transition towards circular economy, smart tourism business models, and climate adaptation, in close cooperation with digital and green upskilling and reskilling opportunities, matching skills and qualifications sought in tourism.
- Fostering social inclusion and innovation through tourism, including by supporting accessibility and affordability measures, and social economy tourism enterprises that facilitate the creation of resilient and sustainable jobs with a special focus on the inclusion on vulnerable and marginalised groups.
- Innovative destination management models based on real-time data of tourism flows, especially in view of addressing overcrowded tourism sites and achieving a more balanced and distributed approach, including through collaborative digital platforms and innovative, sustainable and inclusive urban tourism routes.
- Strengthening the role of cities as gates into the wider tourism regional setting, especially in lesser-known regions with high tourism potential, through fostering urban-rural linkages in the tourism context, including by capitalising on cultural assets and heritage sites in the proximity of urban centres and surrounding areas.
- New tourism governance models, including participatory and collaborative tools to enhance local and stakeholder participation, crisis management measures, innovative data collection mechanisms, systems to manage the pressure on public resources and public services, and measures addressing social and housing needs, cost and quality of living considerations.
Topic 3: Harnessing talent in shrinking cities
- Encouraging the economic diversification of targeted urban areas, by focusing on emerging sectors with greater added value but also potential in view of local economy’s characteristics, possibly in the light of entrepreneurial discovery processes and smart specialisation approaches.
- Reinforcing local entrepreneurship of young people through innovative financial schemes supporting the creation of start-ups or spin-offs by resident students and/or recently graduated workers (and in particular women), related incubation, mentorship and associated business services.
- Fostering new alliances between urban authorities, enterprises, academia, research institutions and/or vocational training centres inter alia to:
- develop curricula, scholarships, on-the-job trainings and associated financial assistance such as youth guarantees in the view of bridging skills mismatches between business demand and available labour forces, as well as in view of the mastering of competences associated to the green and digital transitions;
- encourage women (equal access to) qualifications and employment;
- promote and organise the integration of EU and non-EU high-skill workers.
- Developing services favouring labour force participation and the quality of life of inhabitants, including through community-based projects increasing social capital and adapting the offer of services to local needs (retirees, families), initiatives contributing to rejuvenate public spaces, the associative, cultural and/or creative community life and/or promoting gender balance and inter-generational solidarities.
- Enhancing the access to affordable housing and/or facilitating the settlement and/or resettlement of young workers and their families and/or of researchers and/or post-graduates that may be indispensable to sustain a vivid innovation ecosystem.
- Renewing and/or rightsizing the built environment and urban space as well as public infrastructure and associated services through:
- measures to renovate and/or repurpose vacant housing, historical or industrial buildings, or to reconvert brownfields and similar abandoned sites into green spaces, also contributing to the EU Green Deal targets towards carbon neutrality;
- new governance and financial models, mutualisation of means within functional area dynamics, to better connect urban and rural areas and/or run collectively infrastructures and services better calibrated, at the appropriate critical mass of population and benefiting from economies of scale, for the cities and their surrounding territories;
- measures to modernise and to improve the quality of the public administrations, of basic services offered to the population as well as to improve the transparent and participative involvement of citizens in decision-making.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
eligible entities
Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
The following authorities may apply for support to undertake the EUI-IA:
- First category: Any urban authority of a local administrative unit defined according to the degree of urbanisation (DEGURBA) of Eurostat as city, town or suburb (corresponding to DEGURBA code 1 or DEGURBA code 2 of Eurostat) comprising at least 50 000 inhabitants.
- Second category: An association or grouping of urban authorities with legal status of organised agglomeration composed by Local Administrative Units, where the majority (at least 51%) of inhabitants lives in Local Administrative Units defined according to the degree of urbanisation (DEGURBA) of Eurostat as cities, towns or suburbs (corresponding to DEGURBA code 1 or DEGURBA code 2) and where the total combined population is at least 50 000 inhabitants.
- Third category: An association or grouping of urban authorities without legal status of organised agglomerations where all the urban authorities involved (Main Urban Authority and Associated Urban Authorities) are Local Administrative Units defined according to the degree of urbanisation (DEGURBA) of Eurostat as cities, towns or suburbs (corresponding to DEGURBA code 1 or DEGURBA code 2) and where the total combined population (Main Urban Authority and Associated Urban Authorities) is at least 50 000 inhabitants.
Within the EUI-IA, the Main Urban Authority is expected to be directly involved in the experimentation and to play a strategic leading role in the development of the EUI-IA project by establishing and chairing a strong Project Partnership to make it technically, scientifically, and financially viable.
Project Partnership involves:
- Delivery Partners – key institutions and organisations able to contribute to the implementation of the project, having an active role in the implementation and funding of the project activities by providing financial contribution to the project (the share of the budget ensured by a Project Partner, i.e. co-financing rate);
- Transfer Partners – cities interested in learning from the experimentation and replicating the innovative solution, following the project implementation and providing the Main Urban Authority with an external perspective related to the transferability and replicability of the experimented innovative solution;
- (if applicable) Associated Urban Authority(ies).
other eligibility criteria
In addition to the principles outlined above for each specific category of eligible urban authorities, the following principles apply to all eligible urban authorities in the framework of the EUI-IA:
- All urban authorities shall be located in an EU Member State.
- Only eligible urban authorities as defined above may submit an Application Form in the framework of the EUI-IA Call for Proposals. An Application Form submitted by a Delivery Partner will be declared ineligible.
- Urban authorities (as defined above) can be listed in a project proposal only as Main and/or Associated Urban Authorities. The category of Delivery Partners is reserved only to institutions and/or organisations that are not recognised as urban authorities in the framework of the EUI-IA.
- If innovative solutions require an urban-rural interface or functional area approach, it is possible to include Local Administrative Units defined as rural according to their degree of urbanization (DEGURBA code 3 of Eurostat) as Delivery Partners. Please note that their number of inhabitants does not count to reach the minimum eligibility threshold of 50 000. The reason for including Local Administrative Units defined as rural must be clearly presented and justified in the Application Form.
- An urban authority or an organised agglomeration can be involved in only one project proposal in the framework of each Call for Proposals (even if these project proposals are submitted under different topics in the same Call for Proposals). The rule applies also to the Associated Urban Authorities (a municipality can be involved in only one project proposal whether it is as Main Urban Authority or as Associated Urban Authority).
- Urban authorities already supported in an approved project by the EUI-IA in the framework of a previous Call for Proposals cannot submit a new Application Form on the same topic over the entire duration of the Initiative.
- Urban authorities must comply with the requirements on exclusion from access to funding (more details are provided below in the Section 8.5 “Exclusion criteria for grant applicants” and in the EUI-IA Guidance, Chapter 3.3 “Exclusion criteria for grant applicants”).
Agencies and companies (e.g.: in the field of energy/waste management, economic development, touristic promotion, etc.) fully or partially owned by the municipality/city council are not considered as Local Administrative Units and therefore cannot be recognised as eligible urban authorities. Nevertheless, these organisations can be involved in the Partnership as Delivery Partners (more details on the roles and responsibilities of Delivery Partners are provided in the EUI-IA Guidance, Chapter 2.1.2 ”Typology of the European Urban Initiative – Innovative Actions Partners”).
Please note that, in the case of associations or grouping of urban authorities with legal status of organised agglomerations (second category of eligible authorities – see above for the details), the institution, including all the other urban authorities involved, is considered as a single urban authority in the framework of the EUI-IA and therefore the agglomeration shall be listed as the Main Urban Authority. In the case of associations or groupings of urban authorities without legal status of organized agglomeration (third category of eligible authorities – see above for the details), the urban authorities involved are requested to identify one municipality as Main Urban Authority and the other municipalities as Associated Urban Authorities.
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
project duration
max 3.5 years
Call documents
Terms of Reference EUI 2nd Call ENTerms of Reference EUI 2nd Call EN(511kB)
Terms of Reference EUI Zweite Aufforderung DETerms of Reference EUI Zweite Aufforderung DE(547kB)
Contact
+33 (0)3 61 76 59 34
info@urban-initiative.eu
Website
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