A major, albeit underestimated, by-product of urbanization is the exponential increase of human exposure to artificial light. Outdoor illumination, artificial sky glow, domestic lighting, light-emitting screens, etc. entrain circadian clock. Despite scientific evidence on the pathogenic role of circadian rhythms disruption in predisposing to NCDs, affecting sleep, metabolism, immune function and many aspects of behavior and mood, EU cities are mostly focusing on improving lighting services’ efficiency, reducing costs and emissions, but failing to consider lighting impacts on health and wellbeing. Through an open-online Urban Lighting and Health Atlas, ENLIGHTENme will collect and systematize existing data and good practices on urban lighting and will perform an accurate study on the correlations among health, wellbeing, lighting and socio-economic factors in 3 pilot cities -Amsterdam, Bologna and Tartu, where a target district will be selected due to its exposure to artificial light and to reflect social inequalities. Through the establishment of Lighting Urban Labs within the district, citizens and stakeholders will co-create innovative Lighting Urban Plans measures and define the implementation of a smart outdoor lighting system and indoor lighting changes in a pilot area within the district. There, a population-based study on elderly – addressed as a vulnerable group particularly prone to suffer circadian misalignment – will allow to assess lighting-dependent risks on mental and health conditions and surveys involving the overall district population and users will allow assess the impacts of urban lighting on quality of life and wellbeing. The results will allow to develop a dedicated Decision Support System and guidelines and recommendation on the impact of lighting on health and wellbeing, proposing innovative lighting policies, measures, technologies and interventions aiming at improving citizens’ health and wellbeing in cities. ENLIGHTENme is a part of the European Cluster on Urban Health.

Drastic decrease in transport emissions of 55% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 is required for European cities to reach climate neutrality. This is hindered by inconvenient mobility infrastructure, inadequate services and insufficient governance for short-distance travel, negatively impacting active modes’ safety and security. REALLOCATE’s main objective is to pave the way towards climate-neutral, safe, inclusive and smart European cities through integrated and innovative sustainable urban mobility solutions that will address the needs of diverse groups and communities, while rebalancing street space allocation. The project will empower 10 twinned Mission Cities (Gothenburg-Tampere, Heidelberg-Utrecht, Lyon-Warsaw, Budapest-Zagreb, Barcelona-Bologna) by providing horizontal thematic expertise, supporting them to build a local innovation ecosystem to develop and deploy zero-emission, shared, inclusive, active and human-centred mobility interventions. Pilots in 15 urban and peri-urban unsafe areas will demonstrate innovative urban space management and reallocation strategies for sustainable modes (with a specific focus on active modes), having in mind safety, inclusivity, affordability and a just transition to climate neutrality overall. Solutions include innovative urban design, behavioural nudging, smart technological and data-driven solutions to reduce actual and perceived road safety risks, all contributing to achieving climate neutrality by 2030. The pilots will be the learning and testing environments for integrated approaches to foster knowledge transfer and collaborative learning to staff in cities through mentoring and capacity building, knowledge exchange, twinning and work shadowing. The project’s impact will be exponentially increased by engaging 10 Cascade Cities in capacity building activities, and providing them with replication packages and guidelines resulting in implementation plans for replicating at least one of the innovative solutions piloted.

INCA project investigates the impact that so-called digital platforms have on European democracies and institutions. Indeed, while promoting economic growth and labour transformations, these platforms pose challenges to policymakers and citizens in relation to people’ participation in decision-making processes, wealth inequalities and erosion of trust into public institutions. In particular, so-called GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft) are becoming more and more infrastructures for opinion-making, labour organization and political debate. Their increasing power in shaping and influencing such issues through lobbying, industrial relations and cultural impact opened up a wide debate on the way to deal with these transformations. While European societies grew up based on liberal democracies and institutions with their capacity to sustain a coordinated market economy, today their role seems to be reduced because of the difficulties to regulate platforms’ corporate power that spread through politics, economy and culture. INCA aims to • define forms to sustain trust in institutions and new models of governance capable to combine the growth of platforms with social inclusion and citizens participation in decision making processes; • stimulate alternative business models and industrial relations so to make GAFAM and platforms accountable to social fairness while preserving their innovation; • to clarify the way GAFAM influence European citizens opinion conditioning democratic processes. Exploring the socio-historical roots behind platforms growth and the erosion of a coordinated market economy, collecting solid data on GAFAM lobbying, industrial relations and opinion-making, and producing participatory actions for the empowerment of democratic processes and citizens’ engagement, INCA contributes to instil greater democratic accountability and inclusion in economic processes prompted by digital transformations.

With the “Climate Innovation Through Interactive Ecosystem Summits” (CITIES 4.0) project the consortium of 4 European innovation ecosystem partners from Brainport Eindhoven, Leuven, Turku and Bologna, aims to contribute to key elements of the European Climate policy as reflected in the EU Green Deal, the ‘Fit for 55’ package (adopted on 14 July 2021) and more in particular in the regional and local translation of this package through the proposed European Union’s Mission 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030 (henceforward EU Mission), introduced in September 2021. The EU Mission will support, promote, and showcase 100 European cities in their systemic transformation towards climate neutrality by 2030 and make these cities into experimentation and innovation hubs for all cities. The key role of cities and of innovation ecosystems in contributing significantly to the EU Climate challenge is well described in the Implementation plan for the EU Mission, which states: „Cities take up only 4% of the EU's land area but are home to 75% of EU citizens. Worldwide, cities account for more than 65% of energy consumption and for more than 70% of CO2 emissions. So cities have the potential - and their Mayors often have the ambition - to be in the vanguard of efforts to deliver on the European Green Deal, helping to enable the EU to reduce climate emissions by 55% by 2030 and to become climate-neutral by 2050.” The innovation ecosystem organisations partnering in this proposal all are situated in and around urban areas that have the ambition to become front runners in the context of the EU Mission and be one of the 100 exemplary European cities to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. In fact, the innovation ecosystems and the partners they bring together are key contributing partners in the urban consortia that are today working to prepare the candidacies as front runner cities under the EU Mission. The individual innovation ecosystems each have a wealth of know how and expertise in areas that potentially contribute to achieving the Climate ambitions of the cities and urban areas they are part of. Brainport Eindhoven has signed up to the Global Sustainable Development Goals, and more than 150 of the partners from within Brainport Eindhoven have themselves signed up to these goals and are actively working to contribute to them. Members of the Brainport ecosystem are also active in European Innovation & Technology Communities on energy technology, smart Urban Mobility and health, all of which offer valuable potential contributions to achieving the climate Mission. Leuven Mindgate has sustainable economy at the centre of its workplan. Leuven Mindgate is a members organization that highlights the leading international role of the Leuven Innovation Region in the fields of health, high tech and creativity. Leuven Mindgate does this, among others, by putting a strong focus on circular economy, and sustainability in general. Initiatives include: ‘Happonomy’- an ecosystem of sustainability driven experts that supports and builds solutions for change makers to drive sustainable economic transformation forward – Studio – D – which inspires, advises and supports companies and organizations towards sustainable entrepreneurship and ‘Werecircle’ a fellowship of circular professionals guiding companies on their journey towards the circular economy. The Fondazione Innovazione Urbana from Bologna, specializes in reinventing the urban space by developing projects related to the care of territory and communities, both from a material and immaterial point of view, to urban planning and regeneration, environmental sustainability, resilient cities, citizen, cooperative, social and solidarity economy and technological innovation. While the environmental sustainability of urban regeneration processes is a central concern in their work, they also put an important focus on the social aspects of urban living and the resilience of com