The Cities 4.0 - Climate Innovation Through Interactive Ecosystem Summits project came to an end on April 30th 2024, concluding a challenging and inspiring journey between the project partners, Brainport Eindhoven, Leuven MindGate, Business Turku, ESTI, and the Fondazione Rusconi, Ghigi, per l’Innovazione Urbana.
The aim of the project was to create synergies among the urban ecosystems of Bologna, Eindhoven, Helmond, Leuven and Turku, which are part of the 100 European Climate Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030, in order to publish a Joint Multi-annual Climate Innovation Action Plan to achieve the ambitious goal of the EU Mission. Let’s have a look into the different steps of the project, the reached results and the legacy we leave for the upcoming months.
CITIES 4.0 mainly consisted in two operational phases to assess the needs of each ecosystem and reinforce their connections to develop the actions to take in the next 6 years to reach climate neutrality by 2030.
During the first phase, an analysis of the current status and of the existing challenges was carried out thanks to several interviews and, notably, to the Local Ecosystem Games that took place from March to May 2023 in each innovation ecosystem. The Local Ecosystem Games focused on two main emission domains: Mobility (Turku) and the Built Environment (Bologna, Eindhoven, Helmond and Leuven). This approach resulted in a 360-degree needs assessment with 150 sector-specific key innovation stakeholders to identify opportunities and good practices for joint interventions and technology transfer, as well as the activities to prioritise and the challenges to face.
Six specific challenges on Mobility and Built Environment emerged, which were discussed at the International Ecosystem Games, held online in May 2023. The outcome of this meeting was presented to the panel of Climate Directors of each of the 4 cities, who reviewed the different proposed problems and came to a selection of 2 challenges:
- Renovating 1000 houses per day
- Last generation of private car-owners
The Open Innovation Challenges process, which represented a consistent part of CITIES 4.0, lasted from September to December 2023 attracting 60 innovative start-ups from Italy, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Romania. The Finals’ event took place online on January 30th 2024 resulting in two winning solutions: Make a BIM from Finland won the ‘Renovating 1000 houses per day challenge’, Karos Mobility from France won the ‘Last generation of private car owners challenge’. For further details on the Open Innovation Challenges Finals, please have a look here.
The entire Challenges process was disseminated through the CITIES 4.0 LinkedIn page, which counts at the end of the project more than 400 followers, and by email to the 100 EU Mission Cities, promoting the Challenges and the winning solutions and fostering further connections. As an additional outcome of the Challenges process, Eindhoven and Helmond set up a pilot with the winning solution of Karos Mobility, which will be operationalised and scaled from February 2024 and throughout 2025.
A further result of the Ecosystem Games is the publication of Collection of Good Practices “Inspiring urban initiatives for climate neutrality”, which also marked the beginning of the second phase of the project. From energy efficient buildings to innovative models of sustainable mobility, better resource management and new systems of governance that involve active citizen participation in developing new climate policies for urban spaces, the Collection gathers 20 of the most significant innovative solutions from the CITIES 4.0 innovation ecosystems. For further information on the projects of each city you can download the Collection of Good Practices.
The Collection of Good Practices was disseminated by email to the 100 EU Mission Cities, fostering connections between different urban ecosystems which resulted in two separate meetings between the partners and the representatives from Lappeenranta, Ljubljana, Riga and Valencia in April 2024.
Building on the connections created in the first phase and to enhance and disseminate the results achieved, 4 working groups involving project partners and relevant stakeholders were carried out on the following topics: Talent attraction for sustainability, Financing the EU Mission, Engaging companies in the Mission and Energy Poverty.
On the latter subject, the Final Event was held in Bologna on April 23rd 2024, involving 30 students from the Advanced Design programme of the University of Bologna. The Final Event was a great opportunity to promote CITIES 4.0 process and results and to explore new innovation paths, concluding the project journey by receiving useful insights and examples from Brainport Eindhoven, Business Turku and Rete Assist on tackling energy poverty to reach climate neutrality by 2030. For further information on the Final Event, please have a look here.
All the project process, achievements and future perspectives have been collected in the CITIES 4.0 Joint Climate Innovation Action Plan, which will guide Bologna, Eindhoven, Helmond, Leuven and Turku in their journey towards climate neutrality. For more information, you can download the full Action Plan.
Even though the CITIES 4.0 ended, future updates from the four ecosystems and further details on the project results will be published in the upcoming months. To stay updated, follow us on LinkedIn.
