Driving Urban Transition Co-funded Partnership
HORIZON Programme Cofund Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-08
- Programme
- Cross-sectoral solutions for the climate transition
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- December 12, 2022
- Deadline
- April 17, 2023
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €12,000,000
- Min Grant Amount
- €6,000,000
- Max Grant Amount
- €6,000,000
- Expected Number of Grants
- 2
- Keywords
- HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-08HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01Energy efficiency - generalPolicy expertRenewable electricitySociology
Description
This topic is for continuation of the Driving Urban Transition (DUT) co-funded partnership to enable it to roll out its full strategy and action plan and assist cities in their sustainability and climate neutrality transitions and by doing so enable the EU to achieve targets set out by the European Green Deal and fulfil its commitments related to the UN Agenda 2030, the Urban Agenda for the EU, the Habitat III New Urban Agenda and the Paris Agreement, European cities need to engage urgently in sustainability and climate-neutrality transitions.
The partnership is expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Enhanced multi-level cooperation and alignment on R&I on sustainable urban development across and within cities, regions and countries, including international outreach and cooperation with other networks and initiatives.
- Strengthen Europe as a role model for R&I on sustainable urban development.
- Innovative, cross-sectoral and inclusive urban governance, policy and decision-making harnessing the full potential of social science and citizens’ engagement in the city making process.
- Sustainable, climate-neutral, safe, resilient, socially inclusive, liveable and attractive neighbourhoods, towns and cities with reduced environmental footprint and enhanced well-being and quality of life for citizens.
- Local authorities, municipalities, business, social partners, civil society, knowledge institutions and citizens empowered with necessary capacity, knowledge, skills and tools to actively engage in sustainability and climate-neutrality transitions.
- Science and evidence-based implementation of the European Green Deal, the Urban Agenda for the EU and other European, national, regional and local urban-relevant policies and strategies.
The objective of this action is to continue to provide support to the European “Driving Urban Transition” Co-funded Partnership identified in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2024 and first implemented under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-16: Co-Funded Partnership: Driving Urban Transitions (DUT), and in particular to fund additional activities (which may also be undertaken by additional partners) in view of its intended scope and duration, and in accordance with Article 24(2) of the Horizon Europe Regulation.
The proposal should capitalise upon new collaboration opportunities offered by the Association Agreements to Horizon Europe, the “Climate neutral and smart cities” mission and the global Urban Transitions Mission (UTM) mission of Mission Innovation to enhance its expertise, capacities, critical mass and broaden its geographical coverage and outreach capacity. With respect to the latter, mutually benefitting international outreach, collaboration and cooperation with global and international cities and research funding networks should be pursued to align strategies and research agenda and promote scientific evidence and good practice for urban policy on international level.
Taking into account that the present action is a continuation of the topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-16 and foresees an amendment to an existing grant agreement, the proposal should describe plans, activities and initiatives that would enable the DUT to ensure, as appropriate, a seamless pursuance of its strategy, objectives and actions to fill important gaps in knowledge, evidence, innovation, technology, data, capacity and skills, integrated approaches, foster inclusive and participatory governance structures and assist cities at European (and, as appropriate, global level) in designing and implementing their sustainability and climate neutrality transitions.
It should, in particular, describe in detail the additional activities (including additional partners) to be covered by the award, and justify their necessity and added value as compared to currently undertaken ones, whilst accounting for the state-of-progress and the evolution in relevant EU and international policy frameworks and urban initiatives. The proposed additional activities (including additional partners) to be covered by the award should also be presented in a separate document in terms of how they would be reflected in the existing grant agreement.
The proposal should elaborate on modalities to scale-up synergies with the works of the NetZeroCities mission platform and relevant projects such as the CapaCITIES networks, the CRAFT platform, the looming Global Knowledge Exchange Centre and, as appropriate, with the missions supporting TRAMI project, to underpin the implementation of the “Climate neutral and smart cities” mission and ensure coherence and complementarity of activities and leverage of knowledge and investment possibilities.
Furthermore, concrete actions should be envisaged to enhance collaboration and synergies with other Horizon Europe neighbouring European Partnerships such as Clean Energy Transitions (CET), Built environment and construction (Built4People), Rescuing biodiversity (Biodiversa+), Safe and Sustainable Food Systems, Towards Zero Emission Road Transport (2ZERO), Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM), EIT Urban Mobility and Water4All.
Interfaces to public procurement and investment programmes and links with Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) under the Urban Agenda for the EU, European Urban Initiative (EUI) under cohesion policy, ESIF, private funds, etc. should be explored to support take-up and larger scale implementation of tested approaches and solutions.
The consortium which applied to and received funding under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-16 is uniquely placed to submit a proposal to continue the envisioned partnership. Not only did this consortium submit the proposal leading to the identification of the partnership in the Horizon Europe strategic planning 2021-2024, it has so far been implementing the partnership through co-funded calls in the year 2022 based on this planning and further to the HE WP 21/22 topic. In this context, the current consortium has particular expertise in relation to the objectives of the Partnership, the activities to be implemented in particular 2022 and 2023 FSTP calls or other calls/scope of calls clearly required/envisioned pursuant to initial proposal/partnership, and other relevant aspects of the action. In practice, another consortium could not continue the activities of the Partnership underway without significant disruption to the ongoing activities, if at all.
While the award of a grant to continue the Partnership in accordance with this call should be based on a proposal submitted by the coordinator of the consortium funded under topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-16 and the additional activities (which may include additional partners) to be funded by the grant should be subject to an evaluation, this evaluation should take into account the existing context and the scope of the initial evaluation as relevant, and related obligations enshrined in the grant agreement.
The Commission envisages to include new actions in its future work programmes to provide continued support to the partnership for the duration of Horizon Europe.
Destination & Scope
This Destination covers thematic areas which are cross-cutting by nature and can provide key solutions for climate, energy and mobility applications. In line with the scope of cluster 5 such areas are batteries, hydrogen[1], communities and cities[2], early-stage breakthrough technologies as well as citizen engagement[3]. Although these areas are very distinct in terms of challenges, stakeholder communities and expected impacts, they have their cross-cutting nature as a unifying feature and are therefore grouped, if not addressed in other places of this work programme, under this Destination.
This Destination contributes to the following Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations (KSO):
- C: Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy through the transformation of its mobility, energy, construction and production systems;
- A: Promoting an open strategic autonomy[4] by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains to accelerate and steer the digital and green transitions through human-centred technologies and innovations;
- D: Creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society, prepared and responsive to threats and disasters, addressing inequalities and providing high-quality health care, and empowering all citizens to act in the green and digital transitions.
It covers the following impact areas:
- Industrial leadership in key and emerging technologies that work for people
- Affordable and clean energy
- Smart and sustainable transport
The expected impact, in line with the Strategic Plan, is to contribute to the “Clean and sustainable transition of the energy and transport sectors towards climate neutrality facilitated by innovative cross-cutting solutions”, notably through:
- Nurturing a world-class European research and innovation eco-system on batteries along the value chain based on sustainable pathways. It includes improvement of technological performance to increase application user attractiveness (in particular in terms of safety, cost, user convenience, fast charging and environmental footprint), in parallel supporting the creation of a competitive, circular, and sustainable European battery manufacturing value chain (more detailed information below).
- Nurturing the development of emerging technologies with high potential to enable zero-greenhouse gas and negative emissions in energy and transport (more detailed information below).
A competitive and sustainable European battery value chain
Batteries will enable the rollout of zero-emission mobility and renewable energy storage, contributing to the European Green Deal and supporting the UN SDGs by creating a vibrant, responsible and sustainable market. Besides climate neutrality, batteries also contribute to other UN SDGs directly and indirectly such as enabling of decentralized and off-grid energy solutions.
The strategic pathway is, on the one hand, for Europe to rapidly regain technological competitiveness in order to capture a significant market share of the new and fast-growing rechargeable battery market, and, on the other hand, to invest in longer term research on future battery technologies to establish Europe's long term technological leadership and industrial competitiveness
The Partnership “Towards a competitive European industrial battery value chain for stationary applications and e-mobility”, with as short name Batt4EU, to which all battery-related topics under this Destination will contribute, aims to establish world-leading sustainable and circular European battery value chain to drive transformation towards a carbon-neutral society.
The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting the battery value chain under this Destination are:
- Increased global competitiveness of the European battery ecosystem through generated knowledge and leading-edge technologies in battery materials, cell design, manufacturing and recycling.
- Significant contribution to the policy needs of the European Green Deal through new solutions for circularity and recycling of batteries.
- Accelerated growth of innovative, competitive and sustainable battery manufacturing industry in Europe.
- Development of sustainable and safe technologies and systems for decarbonisation of transport and stationary applications.
- Contributing to the strategic independence of Europe through investigation of alternative battery chemistries using non-critical raw materials and efficient recycling technologies.
- Increasing synergies with other partnerships and initiatives.
Emerging breakthrough technologies and climate solutions
Although the contribution of a wide range of technologies to reach climate neutrality is already foreseeable, EU R&I programming should also leave room for emerging and break-through technologies with a high potential to achieve climate neutrality. These technologies can play a significant role in reaching the EU’s goal to become climate neutral by 2050.
Relevant topics supported under this Destination complement the activities supported under Pillars I or III. They address emerging technologies that can enable the climate transition with a technology-neutral bottom-up approach. Research in this area is mostly technological in nature but should also, where relevant, be accompanied by assessments of environmental, social and economic impacts, by identification of regulatory needs, and by activities supporting the creation of value chains to build up new ecosystems of stakeholders working on breakthrough technologies.
The main expected impacts to be generated by the topic targeting breakthrough technologies and climate solutions under this Destination are:
- Emergence of unanticipated technologies enabling emerging zero-greenhouse gas and negative emissions in energy and transport;
- Development of high-risk/high return technologies to enable a transition to a net greenhouse gas neutral European economy.
[1] The bulk of activities are supported by the Institutional Partnership ‘Clean Hydrogen’.
[2] Communities and cities are mainly supported under the Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, and through the co-funded Partnership ‘Driving Urban Transition’, implemented in this work programme as a grant to identified beneficiary.
[3] Citizens engagement as well as social sciences and humanities are mainstreamed across multiple topics across various Destinations in this work programme.
[4] ‘Open strategic autonomy’ refers to the term ‘strategic autonomy while preserving an open economy’, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council 1 – 2 October 2020.
Eligibility & Conditions
General conditions
2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
The proposal must be submitted by the coordinator of the consortium funded under HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-16: Co-Funded Partnership: Driving Urban Transitions to a sustainable future (DUT). This eligibility condition is without prejudice to the possibility to include additional partners.
3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes
The evaluation committee will be composed partially by representatives of EU institutions.
If the outcome of amendment preparations is an award decision, the coordinator of the consortium funded under the grant agreement that was established in response to the call topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-16 will be invited submit an amendment to the grant agreement, on behalf of the beneficiaries.
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Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes
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Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual
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Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes
This action is intended to be implemented in the form of an amendment of the grant agreement concluded pursuant to topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-16.
For the additional activities covered by this action:
- The funding rate is 30 % of the eligible costs.
- Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP). The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the primary activities of this action in order to be able to achieve its objectives. The EUR 60 000 threshold provided for in Article 204(a) of the Financial Regulation No 2018/1046 does not apply. The maximum amount of FSTP to be granted to an individual third party is EUR 5.000.000. This amount is justified since provision of FSTP is the primary activity of this action and it is based on the extensive experience under predecessors of this partnership.
The starting date of the grant awarded under this topic may be as of the submission date of the application. Applicants must justify the need for a retroactive starting date in their application. Costs incurred from the starting date of the action may be considered eligible (and will be reflected in the entry into force date of the amendment to the grant agreement).
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes
Specific conditions
7. Specific conditions: described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]
Documents
Call documents:
Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System
**the template will be available soon**
Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE COFUND)
MGA
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 8. Climate, Energy and Mobility
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 13. General Annexes
HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Support & Resources
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Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.
Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.
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IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.
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CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.
The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment – consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.
Partner Search Services help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.
Latest Updates
The call for proposals HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01 closed on 18/04/2023. 80 proposals were submitted to the call. The breakdown per topic is:
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-01 (RIA) : 12 proposals
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-02 (RIA) : 13 proposals
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-03 (RIA) : 15 proposals
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-04 (IA-LS) : 12 proposals
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-05 (IA) : 18 proposals
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-06 (IA) : 3 proposals
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-07 (CSA-LS) : 6 proposals
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-01-08 (COFUND) : 1 proposal
Following the Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/2506, as of 16th December 2022, no legal commitments (including the grant agreement itself as well as subcontracts, purchase contracts, financial support to third parties etc.) can be signed with Hungarian public interest trusts established under Hungarian Act IX of 2021 or any entity they maintain.
Affected entities may continue to apply to calls for proposals. However, in case the Council measures are not lifted, such entities are not eligible to participate in any funded role (beneficiaries, affiliated entities, subcontractors, recipients of financial support to third parties).
[OPTION FOR MULTI-BENEFICIARY GRANT CALLS: In this case, co-applicants will be invited to remove or replace that entity [SUB-OPTION FOR CALLS ALLOWING ASSOCIATED PARTNERS: and/or to change its status into associated partner]. Tasks and budget may be redistributed accordingly]