Innovative models for collective community investment and ownership

Collective community investment and ownership models can empower diverse local community stakeholders to collectively invest in, own, manage, and benefit from local commercial, housing, transitional, or mixed-use assets. By directly engaging community stakeholders, such bottom-up and place-based approaches respond to local community needs and preferences and create local agency and long-term stewardship in the revitalisation of neighbourhoods.

Proposals are expected to address all of the following:

• Develop a collective community investment or ownership model that involves diverse community stakeholders, including marginalised groups or those in a vulnerable situation, in the co-creation and revitalisation of neighbourhoods in line with the New European Bauhaus by focusing on one of the following options:
  • Option A: A community equity investment model that offers community stakeholders the ability to acquire shares in local cooperative and community-based commercial or service-oriented assets to profit from and participate in their further development without necessarily working there.
  • Option B: An occupant equity model through which community stakeholders build equity via their occupancy and participation in the development of a local cooperative and community-based housing or mixed-use[[ Mixed-used assets refer to assets that combine different functions, e.g. housing, community services, etc.]] asset where they typically live or work.
• Develop and validate the model in at least three neighbourhoods in different Member States and/or Associated Countries.
• Assess the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the model on the targeted neighbourhood(s) and their surrounding environment, including long-term affordability, accessibility, and local community and public interest outcomes.
• Identify potential systemic challenges to the uptake of the model and formulate solutions to overcome them. This should include considerations of the influence of local capital and real estate market dynamics, and the long-term financial viability of the developed model[[ European Commission, ’NEB Investment Guidelines’, New European Bauhaus, accessed 5 August 2025, https://new-european-bauhaus.europa.eu/tools-and-resources/neb-investment-guidelines_en .Sections of particular relevance for applicants to consider include: 1. Introduction; 2. Mapping the NEB; 4.4 Project risks; 5. Making the NEB case; and 6. Conclusions.]].
• Consider and leverage existing relevant investment and ownership regulations and legal aspects at the local, regional, and national levels.
• Provide recommendations to scale up and adapt the model in different local and cultural contexts.

Proposals are expected to follow a participatory[[ See definition in the Glossary section of the NEB part of the HE WP26-27.]] and transdisciplinary[[ See definition in the Glossary section of the NEB part of the HE WP26-27.]] approach through the integration of different actors and disciplines.

This topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH)[[ See definition in the Glossary section of the NEB part of the HE WP26-27.]] disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions, as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Proposals are expected to allocate at least 0.8% of their budget for engaging with the Horizon Europe-funded 'New European Bauhaus hub for results and impact' to share their intermediate and final results, findings and learnings, as well as to contribute to impact assessment.