The ERA-NET Smart Cities and Communities (ENSCC) is set in the context of the grand societal challenge of urbanisation. Its goal was to stimulate successful practice and facilitate replicability in the field of Smart Cities and Communities. The ERA-NET was proposed and established by the transnational R&I funding platform JPI Urban Europe with the ambition to develop and implement new technologies and solutions towards achieving the energy efficiency targets for 2030 and 2050.
Addressing the grand societal challenges of our time requires transdisciplinarity, i.e. the collaboration of all stakeholders from the quadruple helix (government, industry, academia, civil society). Such an approach asks for new concepts in R&I funding, especially in bringing together the implementation capacities of national and local problem owners, the ingenuity of solution providers, the inspiration of researchers, and the collaborative feedback of citizens.
Since the innovation cycles and value chains of our time reach across continents, and even across the globe, the same should be true for developing the solutions for our problems. However, transnational R&I funding collaboration comes with the challenge of bringing together funding agencies (FA) from various parts of the funding chain, or better, the innovation cycle. Each type of FA addresses specific groups of stakeholders, in very different competitive environments. Funding them in shared projects, requires new sets of funding instruments and skills, specifically from the part of the FAs.
Besides the joint call, the ERA-NET originally aimed at conducting two additional activities: (A) to work towards a joint call with China and (B) to work towards the alignment of national R&D funding with nationally or regionally operated Structural Funds. While the efforts regarding R&I funding collaboration with China proved to be successful, it became clear very soon that the alignment of R&I funding with ERDF funds would not be feasible due to the diversity of stakeholders addressed, funding instruments used, and conflicting interests of the policy stakeholders involved.
