Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ENUTC (ERA-NET Urban Transformation Capacities) Reporting period: 2020-11-01 to 2022-01-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project The sense of urgency for a rapid sustainable transformation of our cities has never been greater. There is an increasing need to stake out pathways for such a transition, to reach acceptance of the need for transformation and enabling capacity building. The current approaches to target urban challenges and meet different international goals are often fragmented and incoherent as they are based on different ambitions and understandings of how cities and urban areas operate. Research and innovation contribute with evidence on how to address urban dilemmas, while supporting capacity building for urban transformation and turning wicked issues into synergistic potential. This needs to be supported by aligning ongoing related initiatives and activities, as well as building upon existing knowledge in order to achieve stronger synergies towards greater impact. ENUTC aims at pooling resources from 16 participating research programme owners / managers of 14 countries to implement joint actions, including one main call (WP2 and WP3) and one additional call (WP6) for proposals, and networking activities (WP7) in the area of urban transformation capacities. The objectives of ENUTC are to:1) To enable capacity building in research, business, city administration and society for urban transformation; 2) To support integrated approaches and solutions for sustainable urban development for the three topics of ENUTC: Urban circular economies, community-based developments and urban innovation ecosystems, and robust and resilient urban infrastructure and the built environment;3) To support transnational, pan-European research networking, community building and ensure synergies;4) To support activities which have a clear impact on transnational and evidence-based urban policies;5) To support research and innovation, which make a clear progress to reaching targets of the international policies, goals and missions. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far The cofunded call was the main activity in the ENUTC program during its first year. The expected results of the cofounded call, in terms of funded projects, are well met. We expected that we could fund between 12 and 14 projects, but we were able to fund 16 projects. Some funding agencies were able to increase their budgets. Important was also the European Commissions’ financial contribution making it possible for us, the funding agencies, to fill the financial gaps when following the results from the evaluation and the ranking list developed by the evaluation panel. A major achievement of the call is succeeding to fund 16 transnational projects and reaching a high number of cities: both as Co-Applicants and Cooperation Partners: https://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/projects/. The 16 projects are expected to fulfil the second objective of the program: To support integrated approaches and solutions for sustainable urban development for the three topics of ENUTC; Urban circular economies: 2 projects, Community-based developments and urban innovation ecosystems: 11 projects, and Robust and resilient urban infrastructure and the built environment: 3 projects.Within the program we have in the first period started to plan the coming capacity building activities to be able to support the projects to reach their goals. The two consortium meetings and the two capacity building meetings, with their breakout sessions, as well as the communication strategy have all initiated a further development of activities that will be performed in the coming three years and that are expected to contribute to fulfil the objectives of the program. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) In the final report we will analyse if the projects will be able to make a clear progress to reaching the targets of the international policies, goals and missions. The socio-economic impact and the societal implications for the program and the funded projects will be analysed in the mid-term report and in the final report. ENUTC Topic 1 Image ENUTC Topic 2 Image ENUTC Topic 3 Image ENUTC Program Image
