UNaLab will develop, via co-creation with stakeholders and implementation of ‘living lab’ demonstration areas, a robust evidence base and European framework of innovative, replicable, and locally-attuned nature-based solutions to enhance the climate and water resilience of cities. UNaLab focuses on urban ecological water management, accompanied with greening measures and innovative and inclusive urban design. The UNaLab partners aim to develop smarter, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable local societies through nature based innovation jointly created with and for stakeholders and citizens. UNaLab’s 3 front runner cities: Tampere, Eindhoven and Genova, have a track record in smart and citizen driven solutions for sustainable development. They support 7 follower cities: Stavanger, Prague, Castellon, Cannes, Basaksehir, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires plus share experiences with observers as City of Guangzhou and the Brazilian network of Smart Cities. Therefore UNaLab results will impact on different urban socio-economic realities, with diversity in size, challenges and climate conditions. In order to create an EU reference demonstration and go-to-market environment for NBS, UNaLab will use and further develop the ENoLL Urban Living Lab model, and the European Awareness Scenario Workshop method for the co-creation of solutions, and the roadmap approach, in this way achieving an innovative NBS toolbox. Roadmaps will be used in all 10 cities, but in particular serve the follower cities. VTT, with a track record in the field of urban sustainability and Smart Cities, leads UNaLab. The UNaLab consortium is comprised of 29 partners across 12 different European countries and three non-EU countries. The consortium is well-balanced, representing key stakeholders within the value chain of urban challenges and smart, sustainable cities (public bodies, research institutions, large industries, small and medium enterprises.

AI4Cities brings together the leading European cities in the intersection of ‘Smart Cities’ and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduction, in order to speed up and steer the creation of new breakthrough solutions in how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can support cities’ strategic plans to become Carbon Neutral. Right now is the time to direct AI research/innovation towards the societal needs -- to assign detailed, pragmatic, solvable ‘missions’ from the cities’ climate action plans to AI developers. Through these missions, this project will create breakthrough, scalable, European solutions for these specific needs, and thus lead to immediate, concrete and measurable emissions savings, but more importantly, give examples on how to create impact and better future, for the whole of the AI community as well as all the European cities and citizens. On one hand, the opportunity window for European AI leadership is closing fast in the competition between solutions coming from the US and China - what kind of AI solutions govern us in the future is of great policy interest for Europe. On the other hand, urban emission reduction ambitions in most of the cities are set up so high that many of them are not realistically achievable without exploiting best-in-class ICT technologies. While cities are different, the largest opportunities for emission reduction in European cities are very similar. The highest common reduction targets in most cities’ climate action plans are in transport and in buildings’ energy use. As an example, in Helsinki, the production of Electricity and Heating accounts for 71% of GHG emissions; urban transportation and traffic account for 24%. Combined, these two sectors total 95% of Helsinki’s total carbon footprint. The purpose of this PCP is to support Cities’ transition to carbon neutrality, by applying the use of AI and related enabling digital technologies to tackle the challenge of reducing the Cities GHG emissions.