The UniCities project is designed to unlock the transformative potential of Ukrainian universities as catalysts and accelerators of systemic change in cities towards sustainability, resilience and climate neutrality. The project is built upon experiences of the impactful multi-stakeholder initiatives Viable Cities (KTH, Sweden) and citiES2030 (UPM, Spain) and expertise of a quadruple-helix partnership in Ukraine consisting of four Ukrainian universities covering complementary areas of education and research, NTUU KPI, CNUT, ISTU and NLUU, as well as societal partners including Association of Ukrainian Cities, CANaction NGO, AESETU – Association of the energy professionals representing major energy companies, and the academic research institute UHMI with focus on climate and environment. The UniCities project delivers along three pillars of transformation: (i) education innovation, where new interdisciplinary and challenge-driven learning activities will foster a culture of collaborative work across disciplines at partner universities; (ii) structural innovation, where university-city collaboration centres will be established at four Ukrainian universities as innovative intermediaries for multi-stakeholder ecosystems that would reinforce systemic innovation, distributed learning and leadership; and (iii) collaborative portfolio by multi-stakeholder partnerships between Ukrainian universities and societal partners of the project to generate impact towards climate mitigation and adaptation. In long-run, the project will provide a point of reference, inspire new university-city collaborations in Ukraine and Europe, and inform discussions across the global higher education sector on the transformative role of universities in transition to climate-neutral and sustainable cities.