The call is open to a wide range of scientific disciplines and welcomes interdisciplinary approaches. It intends to support a large range of activities, from research to innovation and implementation. It also asks applicants to engage explicitly with stakeholders (including but not limited to public authorities, companies and NGOs) in projects and to consider users’ needs in the identification of project goals. Projects are expected to take a transdisciplinary and preferably co-creative approach from the early project formulation stage.

The DUT Partnership focuses on three following  critical urban sectors (and their interrelationships) which are laid out in its roadmap as Transition Pathways (TP):

Positive Energy Districts Pathway (PED) aims at supporting urban energy transitions through innovative solutions for the planning, large-scale implementation and replication of PEDs with the mission to have at least 100 PED by 2025. Furthermore, it will contribute to the Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by building a portfolio of PED related solutions towards climate neutrality. PEDs build on the optimisation of energy efficiency, (local) energy generation from renewables and energy flexibility and will be synergistically connected to the energy system in Europe.

• PED topic 1: Energy Resilience and Energy Poverty
• PED topic 2: Urban Regeneration and Refurbishment
• PED topic 3: Enabling Systems for Local Energy Transitions: Collaboration and Sustainable Investment

15-minutes City Pathway (15mC) fosters sustainable urban mobility transitions by improving accessibility and connectivity, starting from the neighbourhood level. The concept of the 15minC is based on the idea that city dwellers should be able to cover the vast majority of their daily needs within a 15 minute radius, by walking and cycling, while connecting to further districts and travelling larger distances by other forms of sustainable transport.

• 15mC topic 1: Integrated Policies and Evidence to Reduce Car-dependency
• 15mC topic 2: Mobility and Planning Policies for Proximity-oriented Developments
• 15mC topic 3: Empower People for Urban Mobility Transitions

Circular Urban Economies Pathway (CUE) aims to support the planning and design of inclusive urban spaces sustained by circular resource flows. Thus, it encourages a multitude of tools and approaches that combine efforts towards increased urban resource efficiency and liveability

• CUE Topic 1: The Built Environment as a Resource Base
• CUE Topic 2: Knowledge and optimisation of resources flows between urban and rural areas.
• CUE Topic 3: Planning and Designing urban areas with This Call aims tNature: Towards a Regenerative Urbanism

Proposals addressing subjects from across different TPs can be submitted and are welcome, though it is not mandatory. All projects are asked to choose a main TP and may indicate which other TP(s) are involved, if any. Each consortium is responsible for choosing the approach that best fits the objectives and positioning of their proposal:

•  a more “research-oriented approach” (ROA) to support projects aiming at producing knowledge, analysing data, better understanding and modelling phenomena and developing expertise and tools that will be useful to stakeholders, practitioners and policy-makers. This R&I orientation (called ROA moving forwards) welcomes proposals mainly focused on strategic and/or applied research;
•  a more “innovation-oriented approach” (IOA) to support projects aiming at developing or improving practical, operational solutions – technological and organisational – for companies, local communities and authorities in charge of urban transport and urban planning, as well as management and testing of such solutions. This R&I orientation (called IOA moving forwards) welcomes proposals mainly focused on applied research and innovation.

The national/regional Funding Agencies (outlined in Annex A, page 46), which are partners of the EC grant under the DUT Partnership project, are not eligible for funding under this co-funded Call. Each national/regional Funding Agency will provide funds directly to their eligible beneficiaries in accordance with the agencies’ rules and regulations.

Tables 1 and 2, provided in Annex A, (pages 46-48),  give an overview of the national and regional budgets dedicated to this Call by each Funding Agency and of their positioning on which topics they can fund and who they can fund.

Table 3, provided in Annex A, (Cyprus: page 63, Czech Republic: page 64, Greece: page 81), presents the funding rules and guidelines for each national/regional Funding Agency.

As not all Funding Agency provide funding for all of the three Transition Pathways and call topics, please visit the following TOPICS CHART to see the topics funded by the participating Funding Agencies. 

The call also provides a Matchmaking Platform on which meetings can be held at any time between 1 July 2023 and 23 November 2023.

The DUT Partnership will also host an Info Day on 12 September which will be followed by a two hour matchmaking session. More information can be found at the following link: https://dut-call-2023.b2match.io/page-961.