“Energy transition” and “technology in cities” are the topics of the upcoming European Urban Initiative call

The European Urban Initiative (EUI) is the dedicated instrument under Cohesion policy for the period 2021-2027 that supports EU cities to test, in real settings, transferable and scalable innovative solutions on urban challenges of EU relevance.

The EUI will launch its third call for proposals in May 2024 with the budget of EUR 90 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).  Descriptions for the two themes have been published on the EUI website (Third Call for Proposals EUI - Innovative Actions | EUI (urban-initiative.eu) to enable cities to already start preparing their projects and mobilising their partners. We invite you to stay tuned as more information will follow in the coming weeks on how and when to apply.  

Background

The European Urban Initiative (EUI) was set up in 2022 to support innovation, capacity and knowledge building on sustainable urban development within Cohesion policy for the period 2021-2027

EUI is used to provide cities or their grouping (totalling at least 50 000 inhabitants) funding to test transferable and scalable innovative solutions on urban challenges of EU relevance, based on open calls for proposals and themes defined by the Commission.

The EUI supports projects with a strong integrated, participatory and place-based dimension, up to EUR 5 million of ERDF maximum each. The EUI builds on the Urban innovative actions 2014-20 and has an even closer focus on cities’ driven innovation, sustainability, and replicability. As a major novelty, part of the ERDF grant to each project is dedicated to the financing of transnational partnerships between benefiting urban authorities and three other EU cities (two from less developed or transition regions). The aim is to transfer experience and to explore the possibility to adapt and replicate in full or in part tested solutions in other urban contexts, including by making use of available funding from Cohesion policy programmes for the scale up.

To date two EUI calls were launched for urban authorities: one for New European Bauhaus demonstrators and a second covering three areas: ‘Greening Cities’, ‘Sustainable tourism’ and ‘Harnessing talent in shrinking cities’.

For more information on the themes of the upcoming third call as well as outcome of the former calls please consult EUI webpage here.