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.

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.