Aim of the call

In answer to the global urbanisation challenge, JPI Urban Europe and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) agreed to work towards a long-term cooperation programme in the area of sustainable urbanisation, with different topics addressed in time. For the second call in this programme, the ERA-Net Cofund Urban Accessibility and Connectivity Sino-European call, the key themes of ‘Sustainable Urban Logistics in the Age of Digitisation’ and ‘Strengthening Climate-neutral Mobility’ have been selected. Proposals should address either one of the key themes or a combination of both key themes.

The call requests proposals from a wide variety of academic disciplines addressing the current challenges around transportation and logistics, mobility and urban sustainability, both from a perspective of understanding current developments and from the perspective of developing new and innovative solutions to address the challenges. Disciplines may include, but are not limited to management, economics, civil and industrial engineering, operations research, psychology, computer science, geography, sociology and urban planning.

The call opened in February 2022 and the funded projects started in January-May 2023 and is expected to end in 2026.

Call topics

Theme 1: Sustainable Urban Logistics in the Age of Digitisation
Urban transport and logistics operations are part of complex supply chains that serve billions of urban dwellers with their daily needs. With the world population migrating more and more into cities, cities growing in population and in space, and agricultural, construction, and manufactured goods being sourced further away, the urban transport and logistics systems have become part of supply systems that are increasingly longer and slower to respond. At the same time, transportation and logistics systems within cities are becoming more fragmented and responsive.

Theme 2: Strengthening Climate-neutral Mobility

Long-time urban issues linked to transportation include traffic congestion, carbon footprint, air and soil pollution, road safety and land consumption. In a context of growing and expanding urban entities, most of these problems remain, but several key parameters of urban development are currently challenged, shaken by uncertain societal trends, working habits and new technologies, calling for a renewed research effort. To address the current environmental and societal issues we face, we must find an alternative model to the urban sprawl and car-oriented model that performs negatively regarding most sustainable urban development indicators.

Timeline

Call opening: 17 February 2022
Funding decisions announced: December 2022
Start of projects: January – May 2023
Projects end: 2026

Funded projects

The 9 national funding agencies, from China, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden, in the ERA-Net Co-fund Urban Accessibility and Connectivity (EN-UAC) Sino-European call have agreed on a list of 8 projects recommended for funding.

E-Laas – Energy optimal urban Logistics As A Service

e-MATS – Electric Multimodal Transport Systems for Enhancing Urban Accessibility and Connectivity

IMTEC – Integrated systems and analysis of urban Mobility for climate-neutral and susTainable Cities in Europe and China

IMUMCN – Improved urban mobility toward climate neutrality under new working habits and transport modes

NEW NORMAL – Sustainable mobility and logistics for post-pandemic second-tier cities

SINERGI – Sustainable Innovative digitalized NEtwork of uRban loGIstics

SOUL – Sustainable Operations in Urban Logistics

TOD2 – Transit-Oriented Development 2 (TOD2) – Public spaces, mobility hubs and climate neutrality toolbox

>> Search for projects in other calls

Documents

> Call text
> List of national contact points
> Call presentation
> Call flyer
> Project catalogue

Previous events in this call

Information webinar: ERA-NET Cofund Urban Accessibility and Connectivity Sino-European call

2 March: Societal impact and the impact plan approach
16 March: Submitting an application at NSFC and submission system UDiManager
30 March: Summary previous webinars and other questions

Call secretariat

If you have questions please contact the Call Secretariat:

Berry Bonenkamp
Maaike Spiekerman
NWO – Dutch Research Council
E-mail: jpiue-nsfc@nwo.nl
Telephone: +31 70 349 44 16

Elena Simion
UEFISCDI – Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding
E-mail: elena.simion@uefiscdi.ro
Telephone: +40 21 307 19 93

SHEN Jie
NSFC – National Natural Science Foundation of China
E-mail: shenjie@nsfc.gov.cn
Telephone: +86 10 62327017

Communications officer: ida.martensson@iqs.se

Funding Agencies and national contact points

> List of national contact points