Do you have an idea for a Horizon 2020 project that will increase urban health and wellbeing or accelerate the pace of city innovation and the transition to a low carbon future in Europe? Are you a city with a specific challenge that could be addressed through an innovative Horizon 2020 project? Then this workshop is for you!

This interactive project development workshop is a unique opportunity to meet likeminded city officials, researchers and innovators and civil society organisations with the aim to build consortia for selected Horizon 2020 topics with deadlines in 2020.

The workshop is organised around draft versions of four pre-selected Horizon 2020 topics, project idea or challenge pitches, followed by roundtable discussions where we exchange and co-create ideas that can be turned into Horizon 2020 projects.

Topics:

• Actions for improving urban health and wellbeing
• New forms of delivering public goods and inclusive public services
• Carbon neutral cities with improved air quality
• Cities as nodes for clean and smart mobility

The workshop is aimed at representatives from cities, research and innovation, and organisations and businesses working with cities.

Registered attendees will receive more information about the workshop, including the final agenda, and the Horizon 2020 topic description in good time before the workshop.

We reserve the right to do a final selection of registered participants in order to ensure a good mix of attendees

Agenda 

16:00-17:00: Welcome; Information about Horizon 2020 topics from the Research Council of Norway; Project pitches from participants.

17:00-18:00: Table discussions, one or more table per topic, facilitated by a moderator; Key questions on central ideas and innovative elements to be addressed by each table.

18:00-18:30: Plenary wrap-up from each table; Tables agree on next steps.

18:30: Finger food (all vegan), drinks and talk. 

Information about the draft topics

Actions for improving urban health and wellbeing (draft version of SC1-BHC-29):

Citizens health and well-being depend on many factors, the environment in a broad sense, as well as socioeconomic factors. The large part of the European population that live in cities are affected by air pollution, water quality, transport, and social stressors related to urban living. Actions to create evidence based policies for improving urban health are needed, and asked for.

New forms of delivering public goods and inclusive public services (draft version of DT-GOVERNANCE-05-2018-2019-2020):

Governance is being transformed by new approaches to delivering public services, which allow for the involvement of citizens and various other actors. The challenge is to critically assess and support as needed this transformation based on an open collaboration and innovation platform supported by ICT ('government as a platform') and on an open environment and ecosystem with clear frameworks and guidelines for modular services quality ('government as a service'). Actions should analyse, develop and demonstrate the potential for sharing common services with different actors (public, private, and third sectors) to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in these collaborations.

Carbon neutral cities with improved air quality (draft version of LCA-CLA-11):

Citizens in urban areas are particularly vulnerable to air pollutants due to their direct consequences on human health, in addition to their climate impact. Air pollution is estimated to cause about 400.000 deaths per year in the EU, while cities stand for about 70 per cent of global emissions. Actions under this topic should address how indirect and direct nature-based solutions in urban settings can combat air pollution and reduce emissions both through removal of air pollutants and carbon storage and sequestration, and by reducing energy needs while also reducing allergy potential.

Cities as nodes for clean and smart mobility (draft version of LC-MG-10):

There is a need to scale up innovation and the use of new technology in order to meet EU climate targets and policy objectives on mobility, and accelerate the phase in which urban areas in Europe are transformed into well-connected TEN-T nodes for clean and smart mobility. Actions should test, develop and implement mobility solutions under real life-conditions that can make cities and urban areas TEN-T modes and clean transport corridors.

Hosts: City of Oslo, EUROCITIES and the Research Council of Norway.