The call was jointly organised by nine European partners of JPI Urban Europe and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) to encourage collaboration between researchers from Chinese and European universities, research institutes, research and technology organisations (including municipal research institutes), cities and city planning departments, as well as European companies to develop knowledge, integrated solutions and decision support tools to a wide spectrum of urban challenges.
Through the call, funding agencies from Europe make available a total budget of 8 M € on the European side while the Chinese funding agency NSFC funds all Chinese partners of the selected consortia with a total budget of 2,8 M € (21.9 M RMB).
“The call generated an unexpected large response with 128 full proposals submitted in June 2018, which reflects the significant interest from researchers on both sides to cooperate and the global nature of urban challenges”, says James Taplin, Innovation Lead at UK Research and Innovation, one of the nine European funding agencies participating in the call.
“China and Europe have a common interest in improving the quality of life and environmental sustainability in our cities. These projects jointly funded by NSFC and JPI Urban Europe will build bridges between Chinese and European scientists and cities so that we can join hands to address the challenges we all face and improve the quality of life for future generations”, says Professor Fan Yingjie, Deputy Director-General of NSFC Bureau of International Cooperation.
The eleven funded projects will start in first half of 2019 and continue until 2022. In line with the broad scope of the call, projects will tackle a wide spectrum of urban challenges on various scales, spanning from integrated urban energy- and transport systems, mobility management in megacities, conversion to electric buses, sustainable urban food production, innovative nature based and technical solutions to improve ecosystem services, models to finances clean air in cities, reactive nitrogen and life cycle analyses of carbon emissions from road pavement.
This pilot call marks the first step in a planned long-term cooperation between NSFC and JPI Urban Europe under the strategic theme Sustainable Urbanisation in the Context of Economic Transformation and Climate Change.
The following projects have been approved:
MAAT: Multi-faceted valuation and administration of access to housing and transportation
SIRIUS: Sustainable, Innovative, Resilient, and Interconnected Urban food System
SIMETRI: Sustainable Mobility and Equality in mega-city Regions
STEP-UP: Socio-Techno-Economic Pathways for sustainable Urban energy development
U-PASS: Urban Public Administration and Services innovation for Innovative Urban Mobility Management and Policy
Financing Clean Air: The potential of Land Value Capture to secure sustainable urban development supporting air quality enhancement
NBS-Sustain-Urb: Sponge Cities within airshed and river basin management: integrating nature-based solutions to create sustainable places
SMUrTS: Sustainable mixed urban transit system with electric and conventional buses
RECREATE: Resource nexus for transformation to circular, resilient, and liveable cities in the context of climate change
HERMES: Integrated evaluation of energy saving, emission reduction potential and management strategies for urban road systems
UNCNET – Urban nitrogen cycles: new economy thinking to master the challenges of climate change
Read more about the JPI Urban Europe – NSFC pilot call and the funded projects here