Proposals should take into account the experience of the ongoing EUCF in addressing the above issues and envisage an appropriate follow-up and scaling up of its fundamental approach.

These concepts should be developed within a limited period of time and cover, among the others, a clear identification of the potential project pipeline, a legal analysis, a governance analysis, a description of how the investments will be financed and a design of the process to launch the investments. In particular:

• proposals are expected to deliver financial support to third parties, in the form of lump sum grants to cities, municipalities or their groupings which should represent 70-75% of the budget.
• in accordance with the general call conditions on financial support to third parties, applicants should clearly specify why financial support to third parties is needed and how it will be managed and provide a list of the different types of activities for which a third party may receive financial support. The process and criteria for allocation of financial support to third parties need to conform to EU standards concerning transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality.

The proposal must also clearly describe the results to be obtained and include the possibility of organising calls with a regional/sectorial focus:

• applicants should demonstrate the capacity to run a financial support scheme at large scale in accordance with LIFE CET standards and that they are able to select the most cost-efficient and appropriate applications considering, among other things, the scale of the potential investment and energy savings, as well as the number of inhabitants covered in the specific context targeted;
• the European City Facility should offer services at the national level to support cities and municipalities in call applications, investment concept development, identification of financing streams and investment implementation processes.
• the European City Facility should also implement appropriate capacity building schemes, in particular to help beneficiaries of the lump sum grants to use the financial support in the most effective manner and guide them in the post investment concept phase;
• additionally, the European City Facility should offer opportunities for exchange of best practices among cities and municipalities, including at national level, with a view to remove existing barriers and enable the uptake and efficient operationalisation of the investment concepts.

Furthermore, the European City Facility should establish an appropriate framework for comprehensive monitoring, analysis, capitalisation, communication and dissemination of results and success stories, notably the monitoring of the investment potential represented by the investment concepts, as well as the investment volumes secured and actually implemented after the end of the lump sum grant; this should include the targeted investment sectors and the related source(s) of funding/financing.

Applicants should be deeply rooted in municipal sustainable energy/climate planning and financial engineering of energy efficiency investments and integrated energy transition investments combining energy efficiency and renewables.
Applicants should also demonstrate a deep understanding of the strategic nature of this initiative, including the different challenges for upscaling finance and, in particular, for mobilising private financing sources.
In addition, applicants should also demonstrate that they are able to mobilise a critical mass of cities/municipalities or their groupings and have a sound and inclusive outreach strategy to cities and municipalities across Europe.