The European Urban Initiative (EUI) officially launched its Second Innovative Actions Call on 31 May with an indicative budget of EUR 120 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Each project can receive a maximum of EUR 5 million ERDF and co-financing, and project implementation should take place within a maximum period of 3.5 years.

The Call for proposals is open until 5th October 2023 at 14:00 CEST. This is an opportunity for EU cities to share their new and innovative solutions.

The proposed projects are expected to focus on one of the following three topics:

1. Greening cities – projects will be funded to experiment and deliver tangible innovative solutions on green infrastructure across EU cities to address biodiversity, pollution, resource and climate challenges, including synergy development with other key policy areas. Tested innovative solutions should contribute to cohesion policy investments that relate to green and just transition, and be affordable to all.
2. Sustainable Tourism – projects will be funded to support the long-term green and digital transformation and resilience of the tourism ecosystem. By introducing unique solutions and comprehensive policies to promote and manage sustainable tourism, cities will set an example for smaller towns, villages and regions that are more dependent on tourism, particularly with regards reducing their overdependence on a single sector, to combine tourism with other investments and job creation efforts in other sectors.  
3. Harnessing talent in shrinking cities – projects will be funded to test new solutions to retain and attract talent to regions identified by the European Commission in the Communication ‘Harnessing talent in Europe’s regions’. The call seeks to identify place-based and integrated pilot projects, i.e., ones that involve local urban communities and address the economic, social and environmental issues from their demographic challenges so that they inspire the use of Cohesion policy programmes in these urban areas.

Cities interested in applying for the Call are invited to register to attend the applicant seminars that will take place on:

• 15th June 2023, in Brussels, Belgium
• 28th June 2023, in Warsaw, Poland
• 6th July 2023, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

For more information and to register for the seminars, please visit the EUI. 

Article published first by the EUI on 31 May 2023.