Context: In the coming decades important geographical, demographical and environmental changes will take place in the urban environment. The rate of urbanization is increasing rapidly, the age structure of the urban population is shifting towards more elderly people, and environmental pressures in especially urban areas are increasing. These changes challenges us to develop integrated sustainable solutions for economic, social and environment problems in urban areas. To optimize solutions, a tight cooperation between HEI's and local authorities is needed. The need for a transition towards more sustainable cities requires a reinforcement of academic programs that educate professionals being able to develop viable solutions for creating smart sustainable cities. The cooperation of universities and municipalities will result at the end in local changes, learning from each other’s approaches and learning to work together on societal challenges. The key-objectives of ESSENCE were: 1) (Inter) Regional dimension and cooperation: ESSENCE aimed at accelerating the design, development and uptake of viable solutions for sustainable cities by enhancing cooperation between HEIs and regional authorities such as municipalities, incubators (e.g. by introducing an international Sustainable City student competition and a Start-Up competition for students). 2) Environment & climate change: ESSENCE aimed with developing a joint international course programme on creating sustainable cities, involving HEIs and regional authorities, and disseminate parts as open courseware and setting an example for other regions. 3) New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses: ESSENCE aimed at investigating, exchanging and testing best practices of innovative teaching approaches, blended learning, distance learning, flipped classroom and ICT methods, and to implement those in a joint course (30 ECTS) on creating sustainable cities. The project partners in ESSENCE were 5 HEI’s and 3 municipalities. The HEI's are partners in CARPE (Consortium on Applied Research and Professional Education), first of this kind in the field of Applied Sciences in Europe, started in 2011. CARPE aims at connecting education and research with their regions to increase social and economic value of the knowledge that they create.Undertaken main activities: In the first year the challenges for developing sustainable cities were discussed in more detail. A course outline was set up, and teams were formed to develop course material together, using the specific expertise of each other. The teaching staff was trained in the use of innovative teaching approaches (creative solution searching and blended learning). Two multiplier events were organised: a conference on blended learning & Smart Sustainable Cities and a conference on creative solution searching in a Smart Sustainable City. The infrastructure for using Open Education Resources (OER) was developed in Moodle. In the second year, the course material for a study programme of 30 ECTS was completed, and placed within the infrastructure. With the 3 municipalities the real life challenge was analyzed and described, in a way the students could work on it. The international Start-Up competition for students was organized, to try out a part of the learning material. In the last year, the course programme was tried out in Utrecht (in a blended learning format). Also the learning material was tried out in a pressure cooker, connected to the international student Sustainable City competition in the 3 municipalities (Utrecht, Turku and Alcoi) was developed. A conference on Viable solutions for sustainable cities was organised. The impact is to describe as an increased attention to sustainability in the participating urban areas, an increased collaboration between the regional authorities and between the HEIs, and finally, with help of this program the students of the five participating HEIS are better prepared for their future positions. New learning material is developed, new learning approaches were implemented. Longer term benefits are to find in: - An increased uptake of innovative teaching approaches leading to the modernization of HEI education, in blended learning, in creative approaches and in learning for sustainable cities; - More intensive collaboration within the HEI's, resulted already in the common effort to implement the results in Vietnam, in collaboration with 6 Vietnamese universities;- Intensified collaboration withins HEI's and with the municipalities about Smart Sustainable Cities;

The lack of proper coordination of aspects related to regulation, financing and management of energy efficiency measures within urban regeneration initiatives, as well as the frequent misalignment of public stakeholders at different levels, are hindering the potential benefits of addressing these processes from an integrated perspective. FosterREG aims at enhancing public capacity at local, regional and national levels to plan, finance and manage integrated urban regeneration for sustainable energy uptake, through capacity building, promotion and articulation of effective multilevel coordination, and national as well as European network strengthening. These objectives will be achieved through public stakeholders’ engagement in joint analysis and knowledge development activities, as well as creation and dissemination of targeted training materials and activities across Europe. FosterREG relates to the Work Programme objectives by: 1) Focusing on the integration of energy efficiency measures within urban regeneration plans, with especial emphasis on building retrofitting while promoting synergies with other sectors such as transport and land-use planning. 2) Enhancing multilevel coordination (European, national, regional and local) of public authorities in the reduction of EU energy consumption. 3) Building capacity for civil servants at national, regional and local level in relation with policy design, planning, financing and management of energy efficiency measures within urban regeneration plans. 4) Fostering the implementation of the Energy Effciency Directive, in particular Articles 4 and 7.

Urban ReLeaf is an action-oriented mission to advance citizen-powered science as a central resource for inclusive urban green planning in support of local policy making, European strategies and monitoring systems (e.g., the Green Deal, Copernicus), and global efforts such as the SDGs (e.g., Target 11.7) and GEOSS. The project will: (i) assess current urban greening policy processes within six European cities and co-create solutions that use citizen observations to complement existing data ecosystems and decision-making; (ii) support the validation and long-term inclusion of active and passive data from citizens for urban environmental monitoring within authoritative data streams, including GEOSS & Copernicus; (iii) Mobilize and empower communities through widespread participation in issues of public interest surrounding urban green infrastructure; (iv) develop a community of practice around topics related to the use of citizen observations for urban planning to foster knowledge exchange and develop capacities across multiple sectors; (v) produce flexible and innovative governance solutions to help scale-out inclusive urban green transitions in support of the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals; and (iv) promote recognition, adoption and trust of citizen observations and other novel data ecosystems for environmental monitoring to trigger innovation within public institutions. The project is coordinated by IIASA, who led the WeObserve project, and involves partners from previous successful H2020 citizen observatory projects and as well as six cities (Athens, Cascais, Dundee, Mannheim, Riga Utrecht) that are willing to embrace new data streams for urban greening planning and policy making and to fully engage with citizens including marginalized and vulnerable groups. Urban ReLeaf is also supported by technology partners and those with strong links to Copernicus and GEO.

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) have the potential to respond to climate change, enhance biodiversity and improve environmental quality while contributing to economic regeneration and social well-being. Yet there is a substantial gap between the promise of NBS and their uptake. To unlock the potential of NBS for sustainable urban development, NATURVATION will take a transdisciplinary, internationally comparative approach to: advance assessment approaches (Objective 1) to capture the multiple impacts & values of NBS to deliver a robust evidence base for decision-making; enable innovation (Objective 2) to identify the most promising governance, business/finance and participation models and how to overcome the systemic conditions that currently limit their use to support systemic integration; and generate momentum to realise the potential of NBS through co-design, co-development & co-implementation of new partnerships, knowledge, recommendations, processes and tools required to build capacity, enable replication and foster cultural change (Objective 3). Our transdisciplinary approach working with ‘urban-regional innovation partnerships’ in six different cities and a Task Force of highly respected international organisations working in this arena integrates science, social science and humanities (SSH) and practical expertise and experience to achieve a step-change in the use of NBS for urban sustainability.

CodeZERO is a three-year project aiming to co-create sustainable and zero-emission last-mile delivery and return solution for e-commerce that are also attractive to consumers. It is articulated in four phases: -An ANALYSIS phase which provides (1) an analysis of existing delivery and return options and an understanding of how they are shaped by the needs and constraints of all involved stakeholders; (2) an in-depth intersectional analysis of various groups of on-line consumers to understand what are the features of delivery and return options making them attractive, with the aim to identify mechanisms to incentivize behaviour changes; and (3) develops an assessment framework to measure the impacts in the environmental, economic and social domains of new solutions. -A DESIGN phase, in which CodeZERO engages in a co-design process involving retailers, transport operators, consumers and local authorities in developing (1) guidelines for retailers to raise awareness among customers; (2) a set of zero-emission and sustainable delivery and return options for retailers and transport operators; and (3) a toolset for local authorities to accelerate the transition towards sustainable solutions in last mile consignments in e-commerce. -A TEST phase running 4 pilots in 4 different European cities in Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway to test a set of sustainable solutions identified in the previous phase with the aim to prove their feasibility, to fine-tune their design and to assess their impacts from the perspective of all stakeholders. -A CONSOLIDATION phase where (1) CodeZERO outcomes are fine-tuned based on the lessons learned from real life applications, (2) requirements for up-scaling of solutions at European level are discussed (3) recommendations are formulated and (4) directions for future research are outlined. Engagement with consumers and retailers’ associations, industry stakeholders, cities and researchers contributes to shaping its results.