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Pillar 5: ‘European Urban Initiative' – Innovative Actions

Financing place-based solutions led by shrinking cities that address the challenges of developing, retaining and attracting skilled workers.

Pillar 5: European Urban Initiative

About the initiative

The European Urban Initiative (EUI) was set up in 2022 under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to support urban innovation and cities’ capabilities and knowledge to build a sustainable urban development future, and in particular, when making use of Cohesion Policy funds available to them.

With a dedicated ERDF budget of EUR 450 million, the European Urban Initiative (EUI) is a novel instrument of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy in the 2021-2027 programming period. The five policy objectives of Cohesion Policy that focus on a smarter, greener, more connected and more social Europe as well as a Europe closer to citizens, will mobilise substantial investments in urban areas. A minimum 8% of the ERDF resources in each Member State must be invested in priorities and projects selected by cities themselves and based on their own sustainable urban development strategies.

Within this new Cohesion Policy frame, the EUI aims at supporting cities to test and develop scalable and transferable innovative ideas and to spread the benefits of tested solutions across Europe, including by making use of the funding available to them under Cohesion Policy programmes 2021-2027.

Beyond, the EUI is about supporting capacities of all urban areas across Europe, providing evidence for policy-making and sharing knowledge on sustainable urban development, including via the Urban Agenda for the EU.

The EUI is indirectly managed by the European Commission and the French region Hauts-de-France. It builds on the Urban Innovative Actions of the 2014-2020 programming period, however, with new features, such as a closer definition of targeted urban innovations and expected impacts, a stronger focus on the sustainability and operational readiness of proposed actions and the support to transfer solutions to other urban areas across the EU.

Support provided

EUI - Innovative actions

Funding support is organised through calls for proposals on urban challenges of EU relevance, open to all EU cities and/or their grouping totalling a population of at least 50 000 inhabitants.

The ERDF finances 80% of the costs of selected projects within a maximum of EUR 5 million each. Part of this allocation is earmarked for transfer partnerships in view of the replication, in full or in part, of tested solutions in other cities in Europe to have an even bigger societal impact, especially in cities from least developed and/or in transition regions, most in need of transformation support towards sustainable urban development.

A dedicated call for innovative actions has been launched under the ‘European Urban Initiative' and 4 projects have been selected to test place-based solutions to address the challenges of developing, retaining and attracting skilled workers in shrinking cities. These are: Haskovo (Bulgaria), Celje (Slovenia), Kozani (Greece), and Stalowa Wola (Poland). These projects will last 3 to 4 years and involve transnational partnerships with three other EU cities (two from less developed or transition regions) to explore the feasibility of replicating tested solutions in other urban contexts and across the EU innovation divide. There will thus be soon a network of 16+ cities experimenting and sharing knowledge on harnessing talent with a modest ERDF investment at the start, but a potentially strong multiplier effect for the upscale, possibly with the support from Cohesion Policy programmes.

A third call for innovative actions focusing on ‘Energy transition’ and on ‘Technology in cities’ closed in October 2024. The selection process has started for projects offering new perspectives for the training, attraction and/or retention of talent in these sectors, to start being implemented as from spring 2025.

EUI-Capacity Building

second EUI-innovative actions call

Demand-driven and short-term capacity building activities can also be organised, with peers from elsewhere in the EU and the financing support from the European Urban Initiative, to help cities to improve and increase their capacity in designing sustainable urban development strategies, policies and projects. City to city exchanges for instance, can mobilise the expertise and knowhow of cities that successfully implemented UIA projects in a recent past to foster jobs and skills in their local economy or new solutions of relevance to attract/retain talents.

  • The Call for Applications for City-to-City Exchanges is now continuously open. Applications can be submitted and approved for implementation on a rolling basis.
  • A 4th call for peer review was open until 13 November 2024.

Find out more

Documents

Topic description from EUI-Innovative actions call 2 ‘Harnessing talent in shrinking cities’