RESPONSE supports the Lighthouse cities of Dijon (FR) and Turku (FI) and their Fellow cities Brussels (BE), Zaragoza (ES), Botosani (RO), Ptolemaida (GR), Gabrovo (BU) and Severodonetsk (UA) to facilitate them deliver positive energy blocks and districts. Through RESPONSE ,the two LHs will achieve a local RES penetration of 11.2 GWh/y, energy savings of 3,090 MWh/y and an emission reduction of 9, 799 tons CO2eq/y within their districts. To achieve this goal, RESPONSE demonstrates 10 Integrated Solutions (ISs), comprising of 86 innovative elements (technologies, tools, methods), that are being monitored with specific impact metrics (KPIs). It attracts the interest of various stakeholders by generating innovative business models enabling the upscale and replication of the solutions forming a validated roadmap for sustainable cities across Europe and beyond. RESPONSE adopts an energy transition strategy, which includes 5 Transformation Axes (TAs), encompassing the 10 ISs. TA#1 focuses on transforming existing and new building stock into Energy Positive and Smart-ready. TA#2 focuses on the decarbonization of the electricity grid and the district heating/cooling systems, supporting fossil-based regions in transition and the development of energy communities. TA#3 proposes grid flexibility strategies and novel storage systems for optimizing energy flows, maximize self-consumption and reduce grid stress. TA#4 links existing CIPs with apps and other digital infrastructure to enable digitalisation of services and connected city ecosystems, integrating also smart e-Mobility to promote the decarbonisation of the mobility sector. TA#5 offers interdisciplinary citizen engagement and co-creation practices putting citizen at the forefront of shaping the cities they live in and towards the development of each city’s 2050 own bold city-vision. Special focus is given to creating resilient and safe cities increasing quality of life and lowering the impacts of climate change.

SOCIO-BEE proposes that community engagement and social innovation combined with Citizen Science (CS) through emerging technologies and playful interaction can bridge the gap between the capacity of communities to adopt more sustainable behaviours aligned with environmental policy objectives and between the citizen intentions and the real behaviour to act in favour of the environment (in this project, to reduce air pollution). Furthermore, community engagement can raise other citizens’ awareness of climate change and their own responses to it, through experimentation, better monitoring, and observation of the environment. This idea is emphasised in this project through the metaphor of bees’ behaviour (with queens, working and drone bees as main CS actors), interested stakeholders that aim at learning from results of CS evidence-based research (honey bears) and the Citizen Science hives as incubators of CS ideas and projects that will be tested in three different pilot sites (Ancona, Marousi and Ancona) and with different population: elderly people, everyday commuters and young adults, respectively. The SOCIO-BEE project ambitions the scalable activation of changes in citizens’ behaviour in support of pro-environment action groups, local sponsors, voluntary sector and policies in cities. This process will be carried out through low-cost technological innovations (CS enablers within the SOCIO BEE platform), together with the creation of proper instruments for institutions (Whitebook and toolkits with recommendations) that will contribute to the replication, upscaling, massive adoption and to the duration of the SOCIO-BEE project. The solution sustainability and maximum outreach will be ensured by proposing a set of public-private partnerships schemes and innovative targeted communication means to streamline exploitation and accessibility to the project impacts.

The Mobile Age project will focus on open government data, mobile technology, and the provision of public services in relation to Europe’s elderly population. Europe’s senior citizens are growing steadily and are predicted to comprise of 28% of Europe’s population by 2020. However, senior citizens do not normally share the same level of connectivity to the Internet as younger generations, and while government agencies are increasingly providing their services through digital platforms, this risks excluding senior citizens from the design and use of such services. Mobile Age will provide the basis for the development of mobile-based open government services focused on senior citizens. We follow a co-creation methodological approach that will allow for a substantive participation of senior citizens. MobileAge will focus on the co-creation of services related to the production and use of open data for cities. This will be achieved by pursuing four objectives: i) exploring and implementing innovative ways to support senior citizens to access and use public services through personal mobile technologies that are based on open government data, ii) develop and deploy co-creation approaches and methodologies to engage senior citizens effectively; iii) develop a situated, practice-based understanding of accessibility, mobility and usability of services from a senior-citizen point of view; and iv) develop a framework for impact assessment and evaluation for co-creation approaches to open service development for the ageing population. Mobile Age’s approach will be applied in cities and counties that are already providing innovative approaches for the participation of senior people in the development of city services: Bremen, South Lakeland, Zaragoza and the Region of Central Macedonia, with scenarios related to social inclusion, extending independent living, data curation for a safer and more accessible city, and the management of personal health information.

Solid urban waste (SUW) is an abundant source for circular products production, but it is generally not exploited. In fact, over 500 kg of municipal waste per capita were generated in the EU in 2020, while only 45% was recycled. The proximity of resources and people, a sufficient scale for effective markets and the ability to shape urban planning and policy are key factors for cities to achieve advancements in this area. REDOL has been conceived to take advantage of this scenario and transform cities into hubs for circularity that implement zero residues strategies while fostering industrial-urban symbiosis (I-US) approaches among local and regional actors. To this end, REDOL will redesign 5 value chains for SUW (packaging, plastics, CDW, textiles, WEEE) ending-up in the production of 12 circular products. Along the value chains a range of new solutions will be implemented for 1) upgrading management technologies to collect, sort and classify SUW, 2) enhancing the processing routes of sorted materials to avoid landfilling and 3) applying cutting-edge digital tools to optimize value chains and interaction among key players. Moreover, REDOL will provide the required organizational procedures, business models and social innovation actions required for the establishment of successful I-US interactions and hubs for circularity at local level. Such an approach will result in the development of guidelines and recommendations for major decision-making bodies and will achieve improved citizens’ perception on SUW as a local resource and on recycled products, thus increasing their participation in separate collection schemes. REDOL will be implemented in Aragon, with Zaragoza in the center of the hub for circularity. This way, REDOL will support its transition towards a zero residues city by 2040. This will imply 144.720 tons SUW/year being re-used, valorized or transformed into secondary raw materials, leveraging economic and GHG emissions savings over 14B€ and 280 ktCO2/year

The European Commission has developed two parallel approaches to support the implementation of smart urban technologies: the creation of 'lighthouse projects' (large scale demonstration of technology in cities and communities) and 'horizontal activities' to address specific challenges (e.g. regulatory barriers, in standardisation, public procurement and performance monitoring). CITYKEYS project is within the context of these horizontal activities. The mission of CITYKEYS is to develop, and validate, a holistic performance measurement framework for future harmonized and transparent monitoring and comparability of the European cities activities during the implmeatation of Smart City solutions. The work methodology will be based on the following key factors: • Extensive collaboration and communication with European cities. • Establish a baseline by analysis and integration of existing results from previous initiatives. • Develop a set of KPIs specific for Smart Cities initiatives evaluation and comparability • Smart solutions for transparent and open data collection and processing. The tangible objectives of the CITYKEYS project are to: 1) Develop and validate a transparent performance evaluation framework: including KPIs definition, guidelines for data collections, performance system prototype and testing in case-cities. 2) Develop recommendations for the implementation of the performance system into the cities decision-making process and recommendations for the development of new business. 3) Engage stakeholders in identifying and exploiting opportunities for synergy and replicability; and establish a collaboration platform for European cities. The consortium includes 3 multidisciplinary research organizations, 1 cities association and 5 partner cities covering different geographical regions in Europe and different urban realities. In addition to the 5 partner cities, 15 others shown their commitment to join the project stakeholders advisory group.