EIT Communities launch Cross-KIC Sustainable Cities Calls
In The News
15 Jun 2020
Cross-KIC Sustainable Cities aims at strengthening collaboration across innovation communities for European carbon-neutral cities by 2030. All the KICs of Cross-KIC Sustainable Cities are working with cities in one form or another, and are critical actors in the climate, food, mobility, and digital spaces, respectively. The aim of Cross-KIC Sustainable Cities is to maximise the opportunity to find radical and experimental solutions to city sustainability challenges from a broader community.
Based on the EIT Climate-KIC Healthy, Clean Cities Deep Demonstration, Cross-KIC Sustainable Cities focuses on the radical redesign of fundamental city functions to create ‘Transition SuperLabs’. It works with the cities of Amsterdam, Leuven, and Madrid, which have been selected for prototyping the functions and the services needed for adaptive and sustainable human settlements. The aim is to establish a framework to incorporate key elements for transition, which will enable cities to properly assess and understand the ecological and human value in cities, encompassing issues such as time value, health value, cultural value, social cohesion, all of which are fundamental to governance and growth.
Cross-KIC Sustainable Cities includes three specific calls in 2020 that respond to challenges identified through the work with the cities. The calls include a business plan to establish targets for market activities and the operational financial sustainability for each of the SuperLabs. Descriptions of the calls are below.
Cross-KIC call on city data spaces for Madrid city
The implementation of ‘city data spaces’ will ensure the necessary data for cities administrations towards sustainable, resilient cities through systemic change. City data spaces are cloud data and service marketplaces that allow for acquiring, storing, and publishing data, and should include:
- Architecture, model and design for data space on a particular topic(s);
- Master data management and integration (with other spaces);
- Data management – governance, quality and security; and
- Running city data space.
City data spaces are expected to meet the principles of the European Strategy for Data.
The call is open to any partner of EIT Digital and EIT Climate-KIC with capacities for implementation of city data spaces in Madrid related to:
- Urban mobility and lifestyle
- Public space, building environment and neighbourhood retrofit
- Urban naturation
City data spaces are expected to explore and measure data beyond classic emission sources, such as social qualitative data and climate risks vulnerability data.
Potential ideas for running apps or business on top of the city data spaces are required to inform business plans and create services/products. Therefore, data and related infrastructure need to be supported by all relevant stakeholders.
Cross-KIC call on food system mapping digital service for Leuven city
Food systems are highly complex and driven by many economic, cultural and environmental factors. Better understanding these drivers and how they interact could help to improve public policies. Achieving sustainability in food systems is one of the most pressing issues in cities and has cross-cutting impacts over topics such as climate, biodiversity, water, land use, mobility, and health, among others. The adoption of food system decisions and actions in the light of systemic change needs a full and in-depth understanding of the food system’s strength and maturity to build upon it.
The city of Leuven designed a roadmap to become carbon neutral in 2050 but is seeking to achieve that target earlier. Sustainable and healthy eating is a strong part of the agenda, and Leuven wants to address problems such as food waste, carbon-intense local production of food and unsustainable packaging.
This call aims to create a food system mapping digital tool to support the city of Leuven to transform the food system of the city and its region into a sustainable one. The tool will collect, consult, and process information enabling decision-making towards tangible actions in the framework of the Leuven 2030 strategy and the European Green Deal (Biodiversity and Farm to Fork strategies).
This call is open to any partner of EIT Climate KIC and EIT Food. There is a strong preference for consortia applications. Proposals must provide digital interactive and dynamic visualisations of Leuven’s (and its region) food system, including matrices of food actors and estimations of needs, production, and waste five years-prior, and potential trends and identification of strategic action points. Additionally, the tool – which aims at being scaled up – will include a business plan.
Cross-KIC call on last-mile food distribution for Amsterdam city
Rising demand for the transport of passengers and goods is increasingly causing problems in European cities and is at the same time a major contributor to economic growth, jobs creation and competitiveness.
The city of Amsterdam seeks to advance the next generation of active, resilient and sustainable urban mobility, becoming a model city for how technology enables community well-being, health and sustainability. The recently adopted Amsterdam roadmap towards a carbon-neutral city mentions explicitly mobility and logistics as one of the main contributors to carbon emissions. Food logistics and distribution are an urgent issue in Amsterdam demanding more structured, sustainable and integrated organisational approaches.
This call aims at supporting access to local sustainable food by citizens in a sustainable, low-carbon emissions, efficient and economically competitive way, especially when looking at global food distribution systems. The call also indirectly aims at creating an economic case for local farmers. The new innovative food distribution model will be offered to local farmers as service, and eventually scaled up to neighbouring regions under the SuperLab concept.
Partners of EIT Urban Mobility and EIT Climate-KIC are invited to submit proposals. There is a strong preference for consortia applications. Projects are to deliver: systems mapping visualisations and identification of potential innovative solutions; design/full description of three experiments and implementation of (at least) one; description of the test(s) results including evaluation and conclusions; description of a new innovative food distribution service/product available to local farmers, including a business model.
Deadline
Call opening Wednesday 10 June 2020
Call closing Tuesday 30 June 2020 (17:00 CEST)
Events and information sessions:
- Amsterdam pitch and meet event – Wednesday 17 June, 10:00-12:00 CEST (registration link)
- (1) Introduction to the call: aim, conditions and expected outputs, followed by open questions
- (2) Pitch and meet
Participants aiming at using this opportunity are requested to contact vera@climate-kic.organd maria.marrugat@eiturbanmobility.eu by 16 June 2020, with a maximum two-slide deck addressing the following questions : i) “What can my organisation bring into the proposal?” and, ii) “What do we look for in a partner?”, as well as indicating contact details.
- Leuven information session: Tuesday 16 June at 10:00-12:00 CET (registration link)
Eligibility
- City data spaces for Madrid city
To be eligible to receive funding for this call you must be an EIT Climate-KIC or an EIT Digital Partner. There is a strong preference for consortia applications.
- Food system mapping digital service for Leuven city
To be eligible to receive funding for this call you must be an EIT Climate-KIC or EIT Food Partner.
- Last-mile food distribution for Amsterdam city
To be eligible to receive funding for this call you must be an EIT Climate-KIC or an EIT Urban Mobility Partner. There is a strong preference for consortia applications
How to apply
The call is a one-stage process: the submission of a full proposal followed by assessment and decision outcome.
To apply for any of the three calls:
- read the relevant Call to Action and Guidelines (below)
- speak to a relevant KIC about the proposal that you are preparing (see contact in the Call to Action and Guidelines documents)
- submit your online application to EIT Climate KIC Business Desk (see contact in the Call to Action and Guidelines documents)
Call to Action and Guidelines, and Application Forms:
- City data spaces for Madrid city
- Food system mapping digital service for Leuven city
- Last-mile food distribution for Amsterdam city
Supporting documents:
