Funding opportunity
The Scalable Cities Action Grant is a financial tool to support the replication of measures already successfully tested in Smart Cities and Communities projects.
4th Call for Proposals is now open!
The present fourth call for proposals addresses two main priority topics:
- Positive Energy Districts
- E-mobility
Download the full text of the call at the end of the page.
This call seeks to:
- Initiate the development of positive energy districts (PED) in the local context and / or tackling the technical, spatial, regulatory, legal, financial, social, and economic challenges of ongoing PED development projects and/or offering mentoring and knowledge exchange on PED development, or;
- Support and promote e-mobility solutions through the replication of successfully piloted solutions among SCC projects.
The Scalable Cities Action Grant is a financial tool to support the replication of measures already successfully tested in Smart Cities and Communities projects.
The total envelope available for the present call is 120.000 EUR. The maximum grant amount for one project is EUR 50 000.
4th call for proposal’s deadline: 26th of April, 2024.
Associated materials are available as downloadable attachments:
4th Call for proposals guidelines
- Annex 1 - Letter of political commitment
- Annex 2 - Application form template
- Annex 3 - Budget overview
- Annex 4 - Final reporting
About Action Grant
The Scalable Cities Action Grant financially supports cities and ad-hoc partnerships that wish to replicate measures that were successfully implemented through SCC projects to facilitate the transition towards climate neutrality.
The Scalable Cities Action Grant is implemented in collaboration with the European Commission and CINEA. The EC has set out a clear aim for Scalable Cities to deploy wide-scale, innovative, replicable and integrated solutions in the energy, transport, and ICT areas and to trigger large-scale economic investment with a view to transforming the market.
The Action Grant is organised through four calls for proposals with four deadlines, covering different topics. This call targets cities and related partners (local energy agencies, construction agencies, civil society organisations, research institutes) from completed Horizon 2020 SCC01 Lighthouse projects and/or external cities interested in replicating specific actions from those Scalable Cities projects.
Budget and Implementation
The indicative budget to be awarded in the period 2022 to 2024 is EUR 1.003.000 to fund around 20 to 30 projects..
The maximum grant amount for one project is EUR 50 000.
Applicants may submit proposals that have higher overall budgets, but the action grant may in no case exceed EUR 50 000 per project. In this case, applicants have to co-finance the difference.
How to apply?
Applications need to be submitted online through the dedicated Scalable Cities Action Grant management platform.
Register to the platform (external link)
Already registered? Log in (external link)
Contact
For any questions on Scalable Cities, please contact the Scalable Cities Secretariat.
Scalable Cities
Proposals can be submitted both by individual legal entities3 or by consortia. To be eligible for the Scalable Cities Action Grants, lead applicants and, where applicable, co-applicants must comply with all the following conditions:
- Political commitment: A letter of commitment signed by an authorised political representative of the municipality benefiting from the Action Grant needs to be attached to prove support for the application. In case the applicant is not a municipality itself, the letter should still be signed by the municipality to demonstrate their commitment for a close cooperation with the applicant.
- Type of eligible applicants: Local authorities or municipalities as well as other legal entities who support local authorities with the implementation of the actions (i.e. civil society organisations, municipal owned companies, municipal agencies, private companies, universities and other non-profit organisations).
- Country of eligible applicants: Be located in a country identified as Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions as well as associated countries listed in Annex A of the Work Programme 2018-20 of the Horizon 2020 Programme;
- Existence of energy and climate plans: the applicant, local authority or the city represented by the applicant (in case the applicant is not a local authority) must be a signatory of the Covenant of Mayors, with a current SECAP or SEAP approved by or submitted to the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. Alternatively, the city needs to demonstrate the existence of an equivalent plan with targets as ambitious as the 2020 European Energy and Climate targets.
The Scalable Cities Action Grant welcomes and prioritises applications to implement activities in small (up to 100.000 inhabitants) and medium (up to 300.000 inhabitants) sized cities. Applications must demonstrate how the proposed activities link to innovative approaches and solutions tested in a Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe Smart City and Communities (SCC) project.
Funding, Mitigation