Driving Urban Transitions to a Sustainable Future (DUT) is the new programme of JPI Urban Europe starting in 2022. The DUT Partnership steps up the game to tackle urban challenges. Through research and innovation, we enable local authorities and municipalities, business, and citizens to translate global strategies into local action. We develop the skills and tools to make urban change happen and boost the urgently needed urban transformations towards a sustainable future with enhanced quality of life in cities.
DUT is realised as a European partnership of more than 60 partners from 27 countries, involving national and regional policy makers, funders and urban-related policy agencies to invest in urban R&I and strengthen a European innovation eco-system for urban transitions. Building upon the JPI Urban Europe achievements, DUT aims to create a strong community around urban transitions and to establish a well-known research and innovation platform that will help cities become more sustainable, inclusive and liveable. DUT is one out of 49 European partnerships under Horizon Europe framework and the only one addressing urban development in its complexity, with a close link to the European mission of 100 climate-neutral and smart cities.
Launch of partnership and first call in September – October
The official launch of the partnership will take place in October and will be accompanied by a series of national events in September.
The first DUT call will open in September and offer opportunities for transnational and transdisciplinary cooperation along and across the three DUT Transition Pathways. In addition, a portfolio of measures is offered to strengthen community and capacity building in all stakeholder groups, networking and learning across countries, sectors and disciplines. Activities include furthermore provision of scientific evidence and recommendations to policy making on all levels as well as valorisation of research results to allow urban dwellers to experience how a future neighbourhood may look and feel.
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Joining forces in the three DUT Transition Pathways
Our future relies on tackling complex grand challenges here and now, many of which must be addressed within cities and by urban communities. The DUT partnership therefore aims to address these challenges with an integrated approach to offer decision makers in municipalities, companies and society the means to act and enable the necessary urban transformations. In order to support cities along their specific strategies, the Partnership focuses on three critical urban sectors and their interrelationships.
The Circular Urban Economies Transition Pathway (CUE)
The Circular Urban Economies Transition Pathway (CUE) wants to foster the design of urban places characterized by regenerative urbanism, by which we mean liveable, inclusive, and green communities and neighbourhoods that are sustained by circular urban economies and resource flows.
CUE encourages a multitude of tools and approaches that combine efforts towards increased urban resource efficiency and liveability. By collecting examples and grouping them according to topic and context, CUE will provide a portfolio of 50+ solutions that can contribute to the circular transformation of urban areas until the end of the partnership.
The Positive Energy Districts Transition Pathway (PED)
The Positive Energy Districts transition pathway (PED) aims to optimise the local energy system through energy efficiency, flexibility and local energy generation from renewables in actions towards the (urban) energy transition and climate-neutrality and mainstreaming these actions in urban planning processes.
PED development strongly builds on the cooperation of key stakeholder groups like public administrations, real estate developers and utilities. PED aims at supporting urban energy transitions through innovative solutions for the planning, large-scale implementation, and replication of PEDs with the mission to bring forward at least 100 PEDs by 2025. Furthermore, it will contribute to the Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by building a portfolio of PED-related solutions towards climate-neutrality.
The 15-Minute City Transition Pathway (15minC)
The 15-Minute City transition pathway focusses on rethinking the existing mobility system and urban morphology to encourage sustainable mobility choices, redistribute urban space and reorganise our daily activities so to make our cities more climate neutral, liveable and inclusive.
The concept of the 15-Minute City is based on the idea that city dwellers should be able to cover the vast majority of their daily needs within a 15-minute radius, by walking and cycling, while connecting to further districts and travelling larger distances by other forms of sustainable transport. The 15minC mission is to facilitate analysis, elaboration, experimenting and testing of innovations for 15-minute cities in co-creative settings, bringing these together in a 15-minute City innovation portfolio of 50+ experiences and practices, recognising different urban contexts and focusing on transferability.
>> DUT Activation Folder
Pre announcement of the first DUT call
We are pleased to announce that the first DUT Partnership joint call for proposals is currently planned to open on the 21st of September 2022.
The purpose of this Call is to support transnational research and/or innovation projects addressing urban challenges to help cities in their transition towards a more sustainable economy and functioning. The challenges are grouped into three themes called Transition Pathways: Positive Energy Districts (PED), the 15-Minute City (15mC) and Circular Urban Economies (CUE).
The projects selected within this Call will be funded directly by national/regional Funding Agencies from the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United-Kingdom.
Each proposal must involve, at least, three partners from three countries of this list and eligible for funding by their respective national/regional Funding Agency. The added value of transnational collaboration should be clearly stated.
The Call is opened to a wide range of scientific disciplines and welcomes interdisciplinary approaches. It intends to support a large range of activities, from research to innovation and implementation. It also asks to engage explicitly stakeholders (companies, public authorities, NGOs…) in the projects and to consider users’ needs in the identification of the project goals.
The first Call of the DUT Partnership is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Partnership scheme.
Visit the DUT webpage to stay updated!
