Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) for the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Platform

This Framework Partnership Agreement aims at contributing to the implementation of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, hereafter referred to as the Cities Mission, and its objective of achieving 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030. This partnership will build on the precursor action funded through the Horizon 2020 Green Deal call topic LC-GD-1-2-2020: Towards climate-neutral and socially innovative cities^[1]. The Framework Partnership Agreement will establish the necessary framework and collaboration for implementing and scaling up the one-stop-shop platform dedicated to the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, hereafter referred to as the Mission Platform. The Mission Platform will cater for the needs of all the cities that commit to the objectives of the Cities Mission and start the transition towards climate neutrality in a systemic and smart way, as they engage in the co-creation and subsequent implementation of a Climate City Contract, hereafter referred to as CCC. The Mission Platform will assist those cities that will be identified and selected as a result of the open Call for Expression of Interest which will be launched and managed by the European Commission during the last quarter of 2021^[2]. Cities that are not yet able to commit to the Mission’s timeline but are willing to commit to accelerate their transition towards climate neutrality within the timeframe 2030 to 2035 following the Cities Mission basic principles, will also receive basic support from the Mission Platform.

The Framework Partnership Agreement is expected to create the framework conditions and engage the needed competencies to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Operation of a fully functional Mission Platform that provides a wide range of tailor-made services to up to 150 cities participating in the Mission. Services cover technical, regulatory, financial and socio-economic expertise as well as assistance for developing and implementing the CCC and should complement and scale-up existing services developed by the project funded under the Horizon 2020 Green Deal call topic LC-GD-1-2-2020: Towards climate-neutral and socially innovative cities.
• Consolidated science-based indicators and a common monitoring, reporting and verification framework for the cities participating in the Mission. This should build upon existing methodologies, including those already developed in the action funded through the Horizon 2020 Green Deal call topic LC-GD-1-2-2020, while ensuring coherent use and reporting regularly on the progress of cities towards the CCC.
• Smart and customised access for cities to the best available research, expertise, tools and technologies that can enable them to quickly identify and implement portfolios of innovative, high-impact interventions on a deep decarbonisation pathway.
• Establish and follow a common CCC process for the cities participating in the Mission. Share experiences and good practices and engage in mutual learning, including through twinning opportunities open to a wide spectrum of cities such as those in disadvantaged and peripheral regions.
• Calls for proposals are launched to support large-scale pilots for the deployment in participating Mission cities of systemic solutions working across functional silos and thematic areas (mobility, energy systems, built environment, industry, SMEs, material and resource flows, natural areas and nature-based solutins, cultural/social/financial/institutional systems, and accessible public spaces), in support of transforming systems.
• Web-based services and assistance to cities that are not yet in a position to commit to climate neutrality by 2030, but are ready to commit to accelerate their transition to climate neutrality in line with the Cities Mission principles. These cities will have the option to co-create a CCC with all stakeholders that will commit the city to undertake in a systemic way all actions needed for reaching climate neutrality in the period 2030-2035.
• Close coordination with the European Commission to ensure that advice and support provided to cities remains aligned to the latest policies and initiatives and makes full use of available tools and services provided or supported by the Commission.

Building on the concept developed through the Horizon 2020 Green Deal call topic LC-GD-1-2-2020: Towards climate-neutral and socially innovative cities and on the setup of a one-stop-shop platform as a first building block for the Mission Platform, to provide advisory services to cities committing to the transition towards climate neutrality, the Commission calls for a Framework Partnership Agreement to establish the necessary framework and collaboration for scaling up and implementing the concept and activities of a Mission Platform and to fully integrate this platform into the Cities Mission. Partners should possess good knowledge and expertise in European urban programmes and initiatives, urban planning, technological innovation for climate neutrality, social innovation and stakeholder engagement, knowledge valorisation and transfer, and funding and financing programmes such as Horizon Europe, EU structural funds, EIB, EBRD etc. Partners should build on the experience developed by European and international umbrella organisations and networks such as the EIT-KICs, C40, Eurocities, CIVITAS, POLIS, ENoLL, Covenant of Mayors Europe/ Global Covenant of Mayors, European Digital Innovation Hubs, ICLEI etc.

The partners will be responsible for defining and enabling the framework conditions that will allow for the development of a fully-fledged Mission Platform that will be focused on delivering the Mission objective of achieving 100 climate neutral cities by 2030 and ensuring that these cities will act as innovation hubs for other European cities to follow, thus accelerating the transition to climate neutrality at city level. The Mission Platform will provide tailor-made services and targeted support for the cities participating in the Mission. It will also offer web-based assistance to European cities that are not yet ready to commit to climate neutrality by 2030, but are ready to commit to accelerate their transition in line with the Cities Mission principles.

Partners should develop a draft action plan to broadly address the main building blocks on which the FPA will operate, in particular: 1) Development, up-scaling of the concept of a Mission Platform and plan for the implementation of its associated services; 2) Co-creation of Climate City Contracts for the cities participating in the Mission; 3) Assistance and preparation of tailor-made investment plans, project preparation and finance for the cities participating in the Mission; 4) Launch and management of calls for large scale EU R&I demonstrators accelerating city climate-neutrality solutions.

The partnership will fulfil the following objectives:

• to fully develop and scale up the concept of a Mission Platform as the main delivery mechanism of the Cities Mission, through a demand-driven approach catering for the needs of up to 150 cities, providing tailored assistance and services through technical, regulatory, financial and socio-economic expertise as well as support to cities for developing and implementing their CCC including related investment plans, drawing where appropriate on existing tools and resources developed by the Commission, and ensuring alignment with evolving European policy developments and actions;
• to coordinate the group of cities embarking in the CCC process, defining and implementing a common framework for monitoring, reporting and verification of progress;
• to further facilitate the sharing of experience, good practices and mutual learning between cities, including additional twinning opportunities, thus enabling participating cities to act as experimentation and innovation hubs for other cities to follow in view of urban climate neutrality by 2050;
• to provide web-based assistance to European cities that are not yet ready to commit to climate neutrality by 2030, but are ready to engage to accelerate their transition in accordance with the Cities Mission principles;
• to launch large-scale pilots to act as demonstrators for the deployment of R&I and other off-the-shelf solutions with potential for scale-up, moving from singular, customised pilot programmes to city-wide initiatives, also replicated in other cities, thus accelerating their capacity to deliver on climate neutrality;
• to establish cooperation and regular exchange, formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding, with the R&I projects that will be funded under the Climate-neutral and smart cities Mission Work Programme in order to identify complementarities, avoid potential overlaps with the pilots supported by the Mission Platform and ensure synergies where relevant, to the benefit of the participating cities.

To ensure a stable framework for the development of the Mission Platform, to avoid disruptions in its services and to deliver sustained support to the time-bound objective of the Cities Mission to achieve 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030, only one Framework Partnership Agreement will be established. The cooperation between the European Commission and selected partners will have a duration of five years. It will cover the period 2022-2027, until the conclusion of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme.

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[1]Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2018-2020, Part 20. Cross-cutting activities, Call - Building a low-carbon, climate resilient future: Research and innovation in support of the European Green Deal: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/lc-gd-1-2-2020.The Horizon 2020 project NetZeroCities - Accelerating cities' transition to net zero emissions by 2030, Grant Agreement n. 101036519 was selected under the Green Deal call topic LC-GD-1-2-2020 Towards Climate-Neutral and Socially Innovative Cities and started its activities on 1 October 2021.

[2]Soon to be published on the Climate-neutral and smart cities Mission webpage : https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/missions-horizon-europe/climate-neutral-and-smart-cities_en