Deadline: 21 November 2022

The Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) partnership and the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) invite you to take part in the matchmaking platform for DUTCall 2022.

The Call is open to a wide range of scientific disciplines and welcomes interdisciplinary approaches. It aims to support a wide range of activities, from research to innovation and implementation. It also asks to explicitly involve stakeholders (companies, public authorities, NGOs) in projects and to consider users' needs when identifying project objectives.

DUT Call 2022 is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Partnership scheme. The call is also part of MICall 2022 to contribute to Mission Innovation's Urban Transition Mission.

The aim of this Call is to support transnational research and/or innovation projects that address urban challenges to help cities in their transition to a more sustainable economy and functioning. The challenges are grouped into three themes called Transition Pathways: Positive Energy Districts (PED), the 15 Minute City (15mC) and Circular Urban Economies (CUE).

Each proposal must involve at least three partners from three countries on this list and eligible for funding from their respective national/regional Funding Agency. The added value of the transnational collaboration must be clearly stated.

Thematic focus

• The aim of DUT Call 2022 is to support transnational research and/or innovation projects that address urban challenges to help cities in their transition to a more sustainable economy and functioning. The challenges are grouped into three themes called Transition Pathways:
  • The Positive Energy District Transition Pathway (PED) aims to optimise the local energy system through energy efficiency, flexibility and local energy generation from renewable sources in actions for the (urban) energy transition and climate neutrality, and by mainstreaming these actions in urban planning processes.
  • The 15-minute City Transition Pathway (15mC) focuses on rethinking the existing mobility system and urban morphology to encourage sustainable mobility choices, redistribute urban space and reorganise our daily activities to make our cities more climate-neutral, liveable and inclusive.
  • The Circular Urban Economies Transition Pathway (CUE) aims to promote the design of urban places characterised by regenerative urbanism, i.e. livable, inclusive and green communities and neighbourhoods that are sustained by circular urban economies and resource flows.

Objectives, approaches and recommendations for proposals

• Focus on urban areas, in the context of achieving climate-neutral and sustainable cities
• Projects are expected to focus on the issues and challenges of the urban area (including the peri-urban area). Where appropriate, they can also consider the effects and impacts on other territories such as rural areas or take into account urban-rural relations.
• Transdisciplinarity, involvement of stakeholders, professionals, citizens, community groups, NGOs.
  • The complex social challenges addressed in the DUT Partnership also require knowledge and insight into the processes of transition, innovation and implementation, acceptance of new systems and services, and insight into the medium- and long-term behaviour of stakeholders.
  • Therefore, collaboration and co-production of knowledge with research users and, in particular, business and government professionals, citizen groups or NGOs (grouped under the generic name of "stakeholders") is highly relevant.
• All projects must clearly involve stakeholders and demonstrate user needs relevant to the project's objectives
  • Stakeholders may, for example, be involved in choosing the theme of the proposal, designing and advising on the project and/or carrying out parts of the work programme. Consortia submitting proposals for this Call are therefore asked to describe how stakeholders are involved in the project (e.g. throughout the various stages of project design, implementation, analysis and dissemination). The extent of involvement may vary according to the context of the proposed project and the national/regional regulations of the participating funding organisations.
  • Stakeholders can be associated with the project as full partners (particularly for R&I proposals, see definitions), or as associated co-operation partners who do not receive funding directly but can contribute to the project in various ways (steering committee, consultant, data provider...). For individual funder rules. Projects are expected to adopt a transdisciplinary and preferably co-creative approach from the early stages of project formulation.
• Scientific disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches
  • This call is open to a wide range of scientific disciplines, in the social sciences and humanities and the arts, environmental sciences, natural and technical sciences and areas of application such as architecture, spatial planning and policy development.
  • In addition, the complexity of urban sustainability often requires interdisciplinary approaches to analyse the challenges and find solutions. Projects must mobilise the disciplines needed to address all aspects of the issues they wish to tackle.
• Inclusion of diversity (including gender dimension) or population-specific considerations
  • Applicants are strongly encouraged to integrate diversity considerations into the proposals submitted, as well as to consider under-represented populations in the planned research.

Financing information

• The total budget available for this call is approximately 90 million euros, including support from the European Commission (EC) through Horizon Europe.
• Project duration: Projects can be financed for a maximum of 36 months.

Eligibility criteria

• The projects selected in this Call for Proposals will be financed directly by national/regional funding agencies in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
• Applicants are defined as organisations/institutions/companies (i.e. legal entities) requesting funding. Applicants can be:
  • Research organisations (universities, university faculties, research institutes or other entities with research undertakings),
  • Companies and commercial organisations,
  • Urban government authorities (such as regional and local government institutions, municipalities and municipal organisations, city authorities, urban public administrations and infrastructure and service providers),
  • Consumers and representatives of civil society (e.g. local and community organisations, non-governmental organisations, non-profit organisations, citizens' representatives, etc.).
• The Lead Applicant is the body responsible for coordinating and managing the project (i.e. the project coordinator). It will be the point of contact with the DUT Call Secretariat on behalf of the entire consortium and will be responsible for the administrative management of the entire project. The Lead Applicant is responsible for overseeing project activities and ensuring that the work programme is on track.
• Co-applicants are Applicants other than the Principal Applicant who are eligible for funding from a Funding Agency. There may be more than one Co-applicant from any participating country. If there is more than one Co-applicant from a country, one of them needs to be identified as the National Contact Point.
• Co-operation Partners are partners who are not eligible for funding from Funding Agencies (e.g. partners from countries that do not participate in this Call or are not eligible for funding from any of the Funding Agencies), but can be included in a project as Co-operation Partners AND if
  • finance their activities from other sources and
  • the consortium in general fulfils the requirements regarding the number of eligible applicants from the participating countries. A clear description/indication of the role and form of involvement of these Co-operation Partners must be included in the proposal. A written commitment (Letter of Intent) from the Co-operation Partners, participating with their own funding or with a contribution in kind, must be submitted with the full proposal. It should be noted that Co-operation Partners do not count towards the minimum of three eligible applicants from at least three participating countries described in the transnational eligibility rule.
• Partners broadly covers Applicants and Co-operation Partners.
• The Principal Investigator (PI) is defined as the person who is the principal investigator of an Applicant.

For more information, visit https://dutpartnership.eu/dut_call_2022/