Specific Grant Agreement to the FPA to reinforce the operations of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Platform

Within the Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) awarded under topic HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-03: FPA for the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Platform, the selected consortia will be invited to submit a proposal for a Research and Innovation Action that will contribute to the implementation of the last three years of the action plan defined in the above FPA.

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• Reinforce services aimed at supporting the implementation and iteration of the Climate City Contracts (CCCs) of the cities selected to participate in the Mission through the Call for Expression of Interest.
• Provide basic services targeted at cities falling under the second objective of the Mission, which is to ensure that Mission cities act as experimentation and innovation hubs to enable all European cities to become climate-neutral by 2050.
• Support cities in the implementation of their investment plans through tailored advice and assistance offered by the Climate City Capital Hub, the City Finance Specialists, as well as the City Expert Support Facility:
  • Supporting cities in finding financing solutions for mitigation projects
  • Supporting cities in finding financing solutions for adaptation projects[[This activity builds on synergies between the Adaptation and Cities Missions. For this purpose, the Adaptation Mission is financially contributing EUR 10.00 million to the Climate City Capital Hub for work on financing adaptation projects in relation to the Adaptation Mission.]].
• Assist cities with innovative and strategic procurement, including joint procurement with other cities, bridging with EU mechanisms and collaborating with national platforms on procurement, for example through regulatory sandboxes:
  • Establish links with the two pre-commercial procurement calls launched under the Cities Mission (HORIZON-MISS-2026-04-PCP-CIT-01 & HORIZON-MISS-2027-04-CIT-05), and gather and disseminate key insights and best practices from these initiatives, including strategies for scaling up solutions and addressing regulatory barriers at local, national and EU levels.
• Provide regular and coherent monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the CCCs in line with the existing Monitoring Evaluation and Learning framework of the Mission and in operation through the Mission Platform. As a part of the process, Mission cities should assess their progress towards achieving climate neutrality as they iteratively update their CCCs.
• Expand and regularly update the open-source services of the online platform, accessible to all cities.
• Provide support to the activities of the CapaCITIES 2.0 network of national mission platforms, in particular through (a) identifying and aggregating evolving needs from Mission and Mission-minded cities[[Mission-minded cities: This term refers to cities that have set a target to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 or earlier but are not part of the 112 cities participating in the Cities Mission.]], in particular those that are part of national Cities Mission networks, as problem owners facing policy and innovation barriers, (b) pinpointing best practices from the local level, including on regulatory sandboxes, that can serve to promote and shape national approaches in support of urban climate action, (c) based on insights from CCC commitments, pinpointing opportunities to diversify and widen the mission stakeholder ecosystem at national level, (d) coordinating on actions to strengthen multi-level governance and learnings and (e) complementing and strengthening the impact of CapaCITIES 2.0 annual and country events, advisory services and resourcing for local partners. Where applicable, the regional dimension should also be considered. In addition, insights and results from the work done with cities by the NetZeroCities City Advisors, City Finance Specialists, City Expert Support Facility and Climate City Capital Hub should be fed into CapaCITIES 2.0 activities aimed at mobilising national finance ecosystems and designing innovative financial instruments for mission implementation.
• Foster mutual learning and exchange of good practice through diverse, comprehensive knowledge exchange activities, which can include peer-to-peer learning exchanges and in-depth content support sessions for cities engaged in similar activities. The Mission Platform should develop targeted learning approaches in direct response to cities' needs, including national networks and platforms, delivering learning opportunities to the Mission cities as well as Mission-minded cities. This should take into account the seasonal schools and initiatives such as EU Skills Academies under the Union of Skills, and capacity building and capitalisation activities of the other EU initiatives such as the European Urban Initiative and the URBACT programme.
• Provide analyses and briefs to the European Commission, including ad hoc requests.
• Establish cooperation and regular exchange with the R&I projects that are and will be funded under the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Work Programme in order to identify complementarities, avoid potential overlaps and ensure synergies where relevant, to the benefit of the participating cities. This collaboration should be formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding with the relevant projects and initiatives.
• Demonstrators accelerating and sustaining city climate-neutrality solutions. This support will enable Mission cities to catalyse and sustain innovation and accelerate systemic change towards the objectives articulated in their CCC. Launch and manage calls for proposals to support pilots for the deployment in participating Mission cities.
• Provide support to the completeness check of potential CCC submissions by Mission-minded cities.
• Carry out reviews of CCC iterations submitted by Mission cities and report findings and recommendations to the Commission.
• Ensure delivery of the 2030 climate neutrality objectives and provide for longer-term sustainability of the developed tools and the portal beyond the grant, and help ensuring the path towards climate neutrality by 2050 for Mission-minded cities.
• Foster collaboration between cities and (local) industry to engage relevant actors in climate neutrality efforts, building on the work of the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC).
• Expand synergies with other initiatives such as the Covenant of Mayors, the Green City Accord and the European Urban Initiative.
• Ensure appropriate continuation and reinforcement – in a Cities Mission context – of the services and support offered by the Smart Cities Marketplace, especially catering for small and mid-sized cities as well as Mission-minded cities:
  • Reinforcing the interaction with energy policy, incl. the upcoming Citizens Energy Package and local heating and cooling plans;
  • Complementing the activities of the Climate City Capital Hub, in particular by providing long-term support to a group of selected small and mid-sized (Mission-minded) cities and guiding them through the process from development of a bankable project to closing the financing deal;
  • Reinforcing project development by supporting the transition from the pre-financing to the financing stage;
  • Identifying possibilities of scaling-up of solutions and investments;
  • Ensuring a seamless integration with other services provided by the Mission Platform at front side, whilst addressing different target groups with tailored approaches at the backend;
  • Expanding the pool of engaged investors and the recently established pool of solution providers;
  • Developing non-city developers’ role, e.g. local solution providers as project leads or facilitators;
  • Position the Smart Cities Marketplace as part of the Knowledge Repository of the Mission Platform portal, promoting it as a repository of good practices.

Expected Impact: Proposals should set out a credible pathway to contributing to:

• Supporting the implementation of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission.
• Accelerating the transition of cities towards climate neutrality, including small and mid-sized ones under the Cities Mission’s second objective.

Scope: This action aims at ensuring the Mission Platform's continued full operational capacity addressing and developing the actions needed to implement the relevant building blocks of the Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) for the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Platform while considering the lessons learned and the new priorities that emerged from the past years of its implementation.

The Mission Platform will assist the 112 cities which were selected in April 2022 [[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_2591]] under a Call for Expression of Interest launched in November 2021 that resulted in 377 applications from cities in all 27 EU Member States and from nine associated countries. These 112 cities respond to the first objective of the Mission to deliver at least 100 climate-neutral and smart European cities by 2030.

Cities that are not yet able to commit to the Mission’s 2030 timeline but are willing to commit to accelerate their transition towards climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest, will also receive basic support from the Mission Platform. These cities respond to the second objective of the Mission to put all European cities in a position to become climate-neutral by 2050.

The Mission Platform should build on existing actions, including relevant ones developed through Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects. It should collaborate closely with ongoing initiatives that have developed knowledge and expertise, in particular with the Covenant of Mayors and their methodologies and processes co-developed with the JRC, and the Covenant Community Group of City Practitioners.

The Mission Platform should also make appropriate arrangements, either among partners or via sub-contracting, to assure continuity of the services and support provided by the Smart Cities Marketplace, producing synergies in particular with the activities of the Climate City Capital Hub, the City Expert Support Facility and the City Finance Specialists.

Other assets of the Smart Cities and Communities context, including Energy Communities and Living-in.eu the data space for smart communities, and the Common Services Platform, should be factored in. This should be done with regard to engaging public, private, and civil society stakeholders in supporting project financing and implementation, as well as promoting shared standards and technical specifications to facilitate data exchange and ensure interoperability of solutions. Synergies should be ensured with the European Urban Initiative of the Cohesion Policy, the Urban Agenda for the EU, and actions funded under the Digital Europe Programme.

The Mission Platform will coordinate with the European Commission to ensure that the advice and support provided to cities remain aligned to the latest policies and initiatives and make full use of available tools and services provided or supported by the Commission.

In addition, the Mission Platform will draw in national-level support and expertise through close cooperation with the national platforms and networks of the Cities Mission, established under the calls HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-01-01 and HORIZON-MISS-2024-CIT-02-01.

The general conditions, including admissibility conditions, eligibility conditions, award criteria, evaluation and award procedure, legal and financial set-up for grants, financial and operational capacity and exclusion, and procedure are provided in parts A to G of the General Annexes.

This action supports the follow-up to the July 2023 Communication on EU Missions assessment[[ COM(2023) 457 final and SWD(2023) 260 final]].

Specific conditions:

The evaluation committee will be partially composed by representatives of EU institutions.

This action allows for the provision of financial support to third parties in line with the conditions set out in General Annex B – Eligibility of the Horizon Europe Work Programme.

The activity "Demonstrators accelerating and sustaining city climate-neutrality solutions", includes the launch of open calls for proposals to support pilots for the deployment in participating Mission cities of systemic innovative solutions. For this purpose, beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 1.5 million to increase the impact of the pilot projects to be supported under the call(s) that will address the deployment of systemic innovative solutions and in order to achieve the objectives of this action. The Commission considers that the size of the pilots should range between EUR 0.5 million up to EUR 1.5 million, depending on the expected impact of the proposed projects. The selection of the third parties to be supported under the grant will be based on a review of the proposed work by external independent experts.

The activity "Ensure appropriate continuation and reinforcement – in a Cities Mission context – of the services and support offered by the Smart Cities Marketplace", requires a launch of an open call for proposals. For this purpose, beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. The maximum total amount to be granted is EUR 5.00 million to ensure the deployment and impact of the outcomes. Without the increased funding, it would be overly difficult for the Smart Cities Marketplace to scale up its activities, reach more cities, and provide comprehensive support for project development, financing, and implementation. Therefore, the indicated amount is justified to achieve a higher impact and contribute more effectively to the Cities Mission objectives. The selection of the third parties to be supported under the grant will be based on a review of the proposed work by external independent experts.