POP-MACHINA aims to demonstrate the power and potential of the maker movement and collaborative production for the EU circular economy. We draw from a number of cut-edge technologies (factory-of-the-future, blockchain) and disciplines (urban planning, architecture) to provide the support necessary to overcome scaling issues; a typical drawback of collaborative production; to find the areas more in need of our intervention and to reconfigure unused spaces. We put forth an elaborate community engagement program to network, incentivize and stimulate through maker faires and events existing and new maker communities in all our municipalities. We build upon the current informal curriculum for maker skills development by nurturing the social side and we put educators and makers together to exchange ideas on the training modalities. A particular focus on the skill development of women and vulnerable groups will aim to empower these (underrepresented) segments to partake actively in collaborative production. In every pilot area we will demonstrate business oriented collaborative production of feasible and sustainable concepts from secondary raw material or other sustainable inputs, based on the needs and preferences of the local stakeholders. A thorough impact assessment framework with increased scope (e.g. social) will be co-designed with stakeholders after short basic assessment trainings and will be used in the assessment of our pilot work. Based on the findings we will kick-start a series of policy events to discuss openly – without pushing our results – the tax and legal barriers that hamper collaborative production.

In an increasingly urbanising world, governments and international corporations strive to increase productivity of cities, recognized as economy growth hubs, as well as ensuring better quality of life and living conditions to citizens. Although significant effort is performed by international organisations, researchers, etc. to transform the challenges of Cities into opportunities, the visions of our urban future are trending towards bleak. Social services and health facilities are significantly affected in negative ways owed to the increase in urban populations (70% by 2050). Air pollution and urban exacerbation of heat islands is exacerbating. Nature will struggle to compensate in the future City, as rural land is predicted to shrink by 30% affecting liveability. VARCITIES puts the citizen and the “human community” in the eye of the future cities’ vision. Future cities should evolve to be human centred cities. The vision of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing H&WB of citizens (children, young people, middle age, elderly) that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe (e.g. from harsh winters in Skelleftea-SE to hot summers in Chania-GR, from deprived areas in Novo mesto-SI to increased pollution in Malta) through shared public spaces that make cities liveable and welcoming.

Disruptive technologies, such as MaaS and CAVs, are bringing radical changes in urban mobility. The goal of MOMENTUM is to develop a set of new data analysis methods, transport models and planning support tools able to capture the impact of new transport options on urban mobility, in order to support cities in the task of designing the right policy mix to exploit the full potential of emerging mobility solutions. The specific objectives of the project are: 1. Identify a set of plausible future scenarios for the next decade to be taken into account for mobility planning in European cities, considering the introduction of disruptive technologies such as CAVs. 2. Characterise emerging activity-travel patterns, by profiting from the increasing availability of high-resolution spatio-temporal data collected from personal mobile devices and digital sensors. 3. Develop data-driven predictive models of the adoption and use of new mobility concepts and transport solutions, in particular MaaS and shared mobility, and their interaction with public transport. 4. Provide transport simulation and planning support tools able to cope with the new challenges faced by transport planning, by enhancing existing state-of-the-art tools with the new data analysis methods and travel demand models developed by the project. 5. Demonstrate the potential of the newly developed methods and tools by testing the impact of a variety of policies and innovative transport services in different European cities with heterogeneous sizes and characteristics, namely Madrid, Thessaloniki, Leuven, and Regensburg, and evaluating the contribution of the proposed measures to the strategic policy goals of each city. 6. Provide guidelines for the practical use of the methods, tools and lessons learnt delivered by the project in the elaboration and implementation of SUMPs and other planning instruments.

URBREATH vision is to develop, implement, demonstrate, validate and replicate a comprehensive, community participation and NBS-driven urban revitalisation, resilience and climate neutrality paradigm that will ultimately radically enhance the social interactions, inclusion, equitability and liveability in cities. Specifically, the aim of the URBREATH project is to implement hybrid/Natural Base Solutions putting at the heart of the decision-making process the communities within a city. Advanced techniques, particularly Local Digital Twins and AI, and social innovation will facilitate the achievement of its vision. The project will have four phases: 1. Inception, 2. Development, 3. Piloting, 4. Transition. The preliminary results of a single Phase are evaluated within the following Phase so to allow for feedback before releasing the final version. The Inception phase will define the methodology to be followed for the project development and will deliver the project functional and technical requirements. The second phase will release the URBREATH technical framework, consisting of tools to manage the whole data value chain and to support end-users to collaborate on the design and creation of NBS to be used in the city/district. It will be used to monitor and take decisions on the NBS to be implemented/deployed in the Piloting phase (evidence-based decision making), that involves 4 Front Runner Cities in 4 different climatic zones: Cluj-Napoca (RO - Continental), Leuven (BE – Atlantic), Madrid (ES – Mediterranean), and Tallin (EE – Boreal). During the Transition phase, all the information, results and lessons learnt from the previous steps will be collected and analysed to provide recommendations and foster replication activities and the uptake of project outputs at the end of its lifespan. To this aim, 5 Follower Cities are involved: Aarhus (DK), Athens (EL), Kajaani (FI), Parma (IT), Pilsen (CZ), linked to the Front Runners for climatic zone and/or dimension.

The aim of SCCALE 203050 (Sustainable Collective Citizen Action for a Local Europe) is to scale the growth of energy communities across Europe in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy production, district heating and more in households and non-residential buildings. Building on the experience of the cooperative movement and a wide range of cities and municipalities, we will: - Set up at least 25 energy communities, and directly support the replication of the SCCALE methodology in 34 additional communities - Develop a step-by-step guide for potential community leaders to support the creation, maturation and replication of energy communities. - Develop currently specific key performance indicators for community leaders and municipalities to assess the maturity and growth of the energy communities in their territories, and for external partners to assess a community's maturity and financial viability. - Gather proven technical tools and financing models suitable for citizen collective action. - Identify viable contractual models for energy communities and the involved stakeholders. - Encourage the proliferation of energy communities across Europe via a network of experts (including municipalities, SMEs, NGOs and academic institutions) to support new and existing energy communities. - Support policy makers at the European, national and local level in identifying suitable policies to foster the growth of energy communities in Europe through recommendations and discussions with policy makers.