Water scarcity, population growth, and climate change put immense pressure on global water resources, challenging human health, environmental sustainability, and economic development. DECIRE-WATER addresses these issues by demonstrating innovative, scalable, and circular water and wastewater management solutions at five sites in Europe and one in South Africa. The project will provide pioneering, affordable, and sustainable decentralised systems, designed to function independently or integrated with centralised infrastructure, predominantly based on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) but also incorporating technical processes. By project completion, our solutions will reach TRL 7-8 and be tailored to diverse geographic, climatic, and socio-economic conditions. Advanced monitoring technologies and digital tools will be incorporated to demonstrate that DECIRE-WATER can achieve the required level of safety and reliability, which is critical for achieving regulatory approval, public acceptance, and eventual market adoption. We will engage stakeholders through co-design and co-creation, fostering acceptance and market uptake, while developing a decision framework to guide policymakers. Public-private partnerships will also be explored to test sustainable business models. Our long-term impact by 2035, is to operate the DECIRE-WATER systems which will collectively drive €60 million in revenues and create 200 jobs in the water sector. In addition, our solutions will collectively benefit 7% of the European population by reclaiming over 7.8 million m³ of water annually, with estimated energy savings amounting to 751,300 MWh/year. By aligning with EU priorities on climate resilience, water security, and sustainability, DECIRE-WATER is well-positioned to meet global water management challenges, ensuring long-term impact and success.

According to the EU’s Climate Adaptation Strategy (COM(2021) 82), “improving knowledge and managing uncertainty” is key for realising the vision of a climate neutral and climate-resilient Union, as “Climate change is having such a pervasive impact that our response to it must be systemic”. Thus, there is an urgent need for an integrated approach for an enhanced understanding of the interaction, complementarity and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation measures, especially regarding the expected increase in region-al mean temperature, precipitation and changing soil moisture (IPCC AR6 WG I). Furthermore, this under-standing and knowledge needs to be provided to a broad audience to support local authorities in EU partner countries in developing regional programmes. KNOWING aims to develop a modelling framework to help understand and quantify the interactions between impacts and risks of climate change, mitigation pathways and adaptation strategies. The framework will be used to assess thAdvancing climate science and further broadening and deepening the knowledge base is essential to inform the societal transition towards a climate neutral and climate resilient society by 2050, as well as towards a more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target by 2030. There is a need for research that furthers our understanding of past, present and expected future changes in climate and its implications on ecosystems and society, closing knowledge gaps, and develops the tools that support policy coherence and the implementation of effective mitigation and adaptation solutions. Currently, there is a lack of knowledge of the Earth system and the ability to predict and project its changes under different natural and socio-economic drivers, especially regarding complex interrelations, rebound effects and behavioural aspects. Therefore, a holistic, system-aware and behaviour centred approach is needed to identify and implement realistic and effective climate mitigation pathways.

The Med-IREN project aims to provide actionable demonstration on how to climate proof the Mediterranean critical infrastructures, across critical sectors, by introducing NBS both in terms of improving climate risk management and sustaining their business continuity to extreme climate change. The project will be showcased in five lighthouse regions across the Mediterranean, each corresponding to a present day challenge, that are aligned with regional policies and can constitute the EU as a global leader in the field. Med-IREN will cover different and diverse types of CI (energy, transport, water, ICT, social) , priority climate hazards within the Mediterranean, which is a climate hot-spot, and NBS interventions. In parallel, the interventions and solutions will be replicated into four more regions across the EU, covering the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Boreal regions. Med-IREN will also provide evidence how key enabling conditions, such as participatory governance and citizen engagement, novel forms of financing, innovative urban/landscape planning and capacity building will support regional systemic transformation nd provide the upscaling and replication mechanism within Mediterranean regions and beyond. A high-end digital decision making support toolset will be developed, integrating data from multiple sources, both in-situ and E.O., applying state-of-the-science models, as well as providing unprecedented visualization and sensemaking capabilities for understanding and quantifying resilience through-out the infrastructure and NBS life-cycle. Med-IREN will rely on the integration of the research output of more than 15 European and National projects, that focused on the (climate) resilience of infrastructures, regional adaptation and implementation of NBS. Med-IREN is conceived as a powerful showcase of the EU twin green & digital transition and an immediate success story of the EU Green Deal.

UP2030 aims to guide cities through the socio-technical transitions required to meet their climate neutrality ambitions. It will do so by enabling a quantum leap from a ´business as usual´, project-by-project decarbonisation approach to a vision-driven, strategy-based approach that is anchored on sound projects and renewed policy development. The approach uses urban planning and design as a vehicle to create better connected, more compact, net-zero neighbourhoods in the city pilots – i.e. neighbourhoods that promote liveability and, through designing with intent, promote mitigation action. Unlike fragmented innovation processes that focus on the deployment of a specific solution to achieve incremental progress, UP2030 proposes that cities should themselves be at the centre of the innovation approach to drive transformative change. The project develops the 5UP methodological framework that supports cities in (i) UP-dating those policies, codes, regulations that need to be left behind to make room for the new vision (ii) UP-skilling, through building the capacities of the entire city stakeholder ecosystem that shall deliver actions (iii) UP-grading, through the development of solution prototypes (digital and physical) at selected neighbourhoods, (iv) UP-scaling to achieve city-wide impact by shaping the enabling governance arrangements and matching project portfolios to financial resources, and (v) UP-taking, by engaging with the Mission and sharing best practices across European cities. Inclusive participation is key throughout the project’s full cycle of activities so that real needs of communities are reflected in the city-specific visions, and co-designed interventions maximise delivery of co-benefits. As such, UP2030 will (a) have a measured positive impact on spatial justice in the pilots, and (b) give the opportunity to citizens to participate in the transition by becoming agents of change themselves through their sustainable behavioural shifts.

INTERLACE brings together a uniquely positioned consortium to empower and equip European and CELAC cities to effectively restore and rehabilitate (peri)urban ecosystems towards more liveable, resilient and inclusive cities. The project applies an integrative, city-driven approach to address urban challenges through the restoration, rehabilitation and (re)connection of natural and social processes between places. A three-tiered mechanism for city and wider stakeholder exchange and learning – the City Network Accelerator – will strengthen cooperation and peer-to-peer interactions on the local, regional (EU and CELAC) and global scales. Innovative forms of inclusive participation will optimise the collection of available knowledge and experiences and the co-production of governance instruments and tools for restorative NBS. Six committed EU and CELAC partner cities are central to this process, providing and sharing experiences with other cities globally and building technical and procedural capacities. The international city network partners UNGL, Climate Alliance and UCLG will facilitate a wide dissemination and application of project outputs through effective pathways to impact. The web-based Innovation Hub will support these efforts by disseminating INTERLACE’s City NBS Tool for urban ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation and promoting project result exploitation. Comprised of integrated assessment systems, a catalogue of policy and governance instruments, city impulse papers, business cases, guidance documents, and more, the tool will support decision-making processes for urban ecological restoration in EU and CELAC cities and beyond. INTERLACE will advance knowledge and awareness of restorative NBS, foster more ecologically coherent and integrated city planning processes, and lay the foundation for sustained multi-directional cooperation and exchange between EU and CELAC cities for wider transformative impact.