FAQ EUI - Innovative Actions

Only an eligible Urban Authority established in EU Member States can submit a proposal for an EUI-Project. To verify your eligibility and check the possibility of your Urban Authority or grouping of Urban Authorities to participate in an EUI-IA project, you first need to check whether you fit into one of three categories of authorities entitled to apply: here.  

Then, you need to check that the 3 eligibility conditions are fulfilled by your Urban Authority or grouping of Urban Authorities: (1) be recognized as a Local Administrative Unit (or grouping of Local Administrative Units); (2) comprise at least EUR 50 000 inhabitants; and (3) demonstrate a sufficient degree of urbanization (be considered as a city, town or suburb, corresponding to DEGURBA code of 1 or 2, according to Eurostat classification). All relevant data can be checked in the following Eurostat Correspondence table: https://www.urban-initiative.eu/sites/default/files/2024-05/EUI-IA_Call_3_Correspondence_table.xlsx. This table is the main reference document for the Eligibility check, and will help you checking whether your Urban Authority is considered a local administrative unit, has a population above 50,000, and has a DEGURBA code of 1 or 2 (refer to urban areas) or code 3 (refers to rural areas). In some cases, a more complex calculation might be needed (e.g., for groupings of Urban Authorities with the legal status of organised agglomeration where at least 51% of inhabitants must live in Local Administrative Units classified with a DEGURBA code 1 or DEGURBA code 2 to be eligible). 

No, only an eligible Urban Authority can submit a proposal for an EUI-Project.

Ministries or regional authorities (e.g. provinces, county council) cannot be considered as an eligible Urban Authority in the framework of Innovative Actions and thus cannot submit an application on their own – only a municipality/organised agglomeration can. National ministries or regional authorities cannot therefore be considered as eligible Transfer Partner either. However, they can be involved as Delivery Partner and have a dedicated budget and be involved in the implementation of the different activities/work packages. They can also be involved as wider stakeholders.

A municipal department (e.g. local police department), municipal institution (e.g. education board), municipal agency (e.g. local development agency), municipal company (e.g. in the field of energy/ waste/economic development/tourism) or similar organisations partially or fully owned by the municipality cannot be considered as an Urban Authority according to EUI-IA eligibility rules. In all cases, the Municipality has to be involved and is the only organisation that can submit the project proposal. However, there are three possible ways for these organisations to be involved in the project:

1. the Municipality is involved as Main Urban Authority and the organisation will be considered as a standalone Delivery Partner having a formal role and dedicated budget, provided the organisation has its own legal personality.
2. the Municipality is involved as Main Urban Authority and the organisation is considered as ‘in-house contractor’ of the Municipality. Therefore, the related costs will be budgeted as “external expertise and services” of the Main Urban Authority. The organisation will not be listed as Delivery Partner, provided the budget of the organisation in the project is limited to 50% of the budget of the Main Urban Authority. For more information about this option and the criteria which define in-house contracting, please carefully read the dedicated section of the EUI-IA Guidance.
3. the organisation is involved as part of the wider group of stakeholders, which implies that it has no formal role in the project, therefore no dedicated budget and responsibility to implement activities.

No, all Project Partners, including Urban Authorities, Delivery Partners and Transfer Partners must be located within the European Union. 

EUI-IA is looking for local Partnerships to address local challenges. Therefore, transnational partnerships are not expected. However, in exceptional cases, it is possible to involve Delivery Partners from different countries than the Main Urban Authority applying for the Innovative Actions, provided they are based in EU Member States and that there is a clear justification in terms of added value for the project.

The Partnership Agreement formalizes the cooperation of the Partners with the MUA. There are however different types of Partners whose collaboration needs to be formalised:

• Regarding Delivery partners, the Partnership Agreement must be signed before the end of the Initiation Phase.
• Transfer Partners must be identified at the latest during the Initiation Phase and successful completion of the Initiation Phase is conditioned by Transfer Partners signing, as minimum, letters of intent. Signing of the Partnership Agreement is the next step required to launch Work Package Transfer. The implementation of the Work Package Transfer must be launched at the latest 12 months after the start of the Implementation phase.

It is recommended that urban authorities select their Delivery Partners through fair and transparent procedures, which does not necessarily mean through public procurement. However, this is only a recommendation, and it shall therefore not be seen as a mandatory procedure in the framework of the IA unless formally required by your national legislation. In case it is not formally required by your national legislation, it is up to the Main Urban Authority to decide if, when and for how long such public-procurement process / call for Interest should be open. Please also be aware that consultancy firms having as primary objective the development and management of European projects and organisations with no staff budgeted (only declaring external expertise costs) are not entitled to participate in a project as Delivery Partners.

Delivery Partners are those that have a formal role in the delivery of a project where they have a set of responsibilities and a budget allocated to them in order to implement them. Stakeholders normally do not have a formal role and therefore do not have a budget allocated in order to pay for their cooperation with the implementation of the project, but their involvement is considered relevant to ensure a smooth and effective delivery of the project Projects need to assess how the organisations they are working with will be involved in the project. If they have a formal role, they will need to be included in the partnership by filling in Part B of the Application Form. If they are part of the wider stakeholder group, please include them in Part C (section C.2.1). Names of specific stakeholders can be already mentioned in the Application Form, and their involvement during the preparation and the implementation phases of the project should be described in the relevant parts of the Section C of the Application Form. Moreover, projects are recommended to foresee (i.e. Section D) some structured mechanisms in order to ensure the concrete involvement of stakeholders in the project (e.g. as part of the Management structures, by creating and Advisory board...).

All three are constitutive elements of the overall project intervention logic. A deliverable is an object delivered during the project as an intermediary step towards the delivery of a project output, which is a key end-product of the project. Result is the expected change in the local situation as direct consequence of the delivery of the project outputs.

Investment refers to a project output that remains in use by the project’s target group after the completion of the project. In line with Article 3 of the ERDF regulation, productive investments, investments in infrastructure and fixed investments in equipment are among the types of activities that can be supported by EUI-Innovative Actions. An investment description needs to be provided, as well as a justification, the location (and if already known, the exact address of the investment), a list of required documents and permits (i.e.: technical requirements, working permits, etc.), details on the durability and final ownership (for more information about ownership please refer to Chapter 7.5.6 ”Ownership and durability”), as well as a list of related risks are to be presented in Part G “Risk management” of the Application Form.

As a general rule, investments shall be foreseen in EUI-Innovative Actions projects only to the extent that they are necessary for the achievement of the project's outputs and results. They should be proportionate to the work plan and budget and should therefore represent good value for money. Stand-alone investments without clear justification and added value for the project will not be supported. There could be several individual investments, which should be individually described and considered as separate outputs.

At the application stage, there are no strict requirements to have all investments-related documentation, design or authorizations available and ready. Nevertheless, the proposal should provide a detailed description in the investment section and in the risk management section, demonstrating these aspects were sufficiently anticipated before the start of the project, to avoid major unexpected issues to occur during the implementation phase. The operational aspects will be covered by the Readiness Check carried out during the Initiation Phase, if your project is approved. 

Application Forms need to be submitted by the Call deadline. A published Terms of Reference will define the specifications and requirements for each Call, including the list of topics for which MUA can submit a project proposal. The submission of the Application Form and annex is 100% paperless through the use of the EUI’s Electronic Exchange Platform (EEP).

The standard scale of unit costs is a Simplified Costs Option, which is different from reporting on real cost basis.

The standard unit cost is an hourly rate calculated at Project Partner level, which applies to every employee regardless of the position in the Partner organisation.

That means that the same hourly rate will be used to calculate the staff costs for the Project coordinator, financial officer, communication assistant etc… belonging to the same Partner organisation. This is a simplification measure (same rate applicable to all staff members of the Partner organisation) and is not subject to the control of each individual staff member’s audit trail.

The hourly rate will be approved during the initiation phase and only an employment contract (i.e. a document confirming that the person is working for the project) and a report of hours (a template for which is provided by the Permanent Secretariat – it is a declarative document and is not the same as a time sheet of hours) will be required for the audit trail.

The calculation of the standard unit cost can be found below.

Remember – the annual payroll is not of one staff member but total staff costs.

Project Partners can either calculate the hourly rate on the basis of the payroll of the whole organisation or decide to limit the perimeter of the payroll to the level of the department participating in the project implementation or of the project team.

The annual payroll considered should use the most recent data available in your accounting system or equivalent.

Some examples of projects related to energy transition can be found in the resources below. Please however note that the main purpose of the EUI call is not to support the duplication of past projects and experiences but to identify and test new solutions. Moreover, some of the projects and initiatives referred to in the resources below may correspond to a format that not always fully match the characteristics expected from proposals submitted in the frame of the EUI. Using these examples as a reference when applying should thus be adapted to the objectives of your proposal, bearing in mind the rules and criteria applicable in the frame of the EUI call.

Urban Innovative Actions 2014-2020 with focus on the energy transition, circular economy, urban poverty and/or housing

H2020 Lighthouse Projects programme

The example of the city of Bydgoszcz (smart-cities-marketplace)

Energy communities (europa.eu)

Positive Energy Districts (PED) | JPI Urban Europe (jpi-urbaneurope.eu)

Matchmaking | Smart Cities Marketplace (europa.eu)

Green Cities Wiki | Smart Cities Marketplace (europa.eu)

Covenant of Mayors - Europe | Covenant of Mayors - Europe (europa.eu)

Online Procurement Helpdesk for Smart Communities | Living in EU (living-in.eu)

The most urgent matters to be addressed should be in line with the needs, challenges and objectives identified in the Sustainable urban development (SUD) strategy of applying urban authorities but also in in view of their relevance to priorities set in local, regional, and/or national programmes funded by Cohesion policy funds (see below reply concerning the ERDF specific objectives) or other strategic document of reference (e.g. regional smart specialisation strategy), valid in your local context. Your proposal should be aligned with such programming and strategic elements to demonstrate that it does not take place in isolation from longer-term goals and coordinated efforts at different levels of governance, that could support its upscale once successfully tested. Emerging technologies can be a great help in developing inclusive, safer, more resilient and more sustainable cities, but don't start building your proposal by thinking about digitalisation processes or the specific technology you will use. Define what is the urban challenge you want to address first.

Once you identified the objective of the project in relation to your SUD strategy, please consult the prompts, Cohesion policy targets and indicators. The prompts and indicators are not intended to be prescriptive. However, they serve as guidance to help urban authorities in developing their proposals in the right direction.

Below are some resources to help understand the challenges of technology in cities:

A Europe fit for the digital age - European Commission (europa.eu)

Online Procurement Helpdesk for Smart Communities | Living in EU (living-in.eu)

Projects | Smart Cities Marketplace (europa.eu)

Join us in building the European way of Digital Transformation for 300 million Europeans | Living in EU (living-in.eu)

LORDIMAS: A digital maturity assessment tool for regions and cities | data.europa.eu

MIMs - Open & Agile Smart Cities (oascities.org)

Coming soon ! Customer Discovery Program for design of Local Digital Twin Toolbox – Expression of Interest

When applying, a project must be submitted under a specific topic. Although some projects might touch upon both topics, you will need to select one topic and clearly explain the relevance of your project within the framework of the call. To decide on the topic under which you should apply, base your decision on the urban challenge you want to address. Clearly identify the challenge and the solution you want to propose, and then refer to the description of the topics (in the Terms of Reference of the Call). Outputs and result indicators listed in the call can also be a good baseline to decide under which topic your project is best suited, depending on where expected results and overall impact would be the most convincing.

As mentioned in the EUI Guidance: projects should be new, bold, creative and experimental. The proposed project must go beyond the present state-of-the-art and business-as usual. Building on research and benchmarking, urban authorities should demonstrate that the proposed project has not been previously tested and implemented on the ground in the urban area, in the Member State where the urban area is located or elsewhere in the EU.

With this in mind, a project that simply replicates existing practices would not be well aligned with the main features of an EUI innovative solution. Whether the innovative solution proposed is revolutionary or evolutionary, we encourage applicants to experiment. Remember to justify the added value of your solution within the topic of the Call, according to its potential to inspire Cohesion policy and the ERDF in particular as principal source of funding of the EUI, and within the EU context.

As mentioned in the EUI guidance, participation and co-creation are key for the development and implementation of genuinely innovative and experimental projects. Following the definition provided by the New Leipzig Charter “Public participation in urban development processes should engage all urban actors, which also strengthens local democracy. (…) New forms of participation should be encouraged and improved, including co-creation and co-design in cooperation with the project’s target groups and more widely with inhabitants, civil society networks, community organisations and private enterprises. Experimenting with new forms of participation can help cities manage conflicting interests, share responsibilities, and find innovative solutions while also reshaping and maintaining urban spaces and forming new alliances to create integrated city spaces. Public participation is central to the successful delivery of a high-quality built environment.”

Therefore, the EUI-IA projects should integrate and apply participation and co-creation processes with citizens, social and economic stakeholders across the different project phases: planning, decision-making process, and implementation. Depending on the project, this could take various forms, such as public consultations, participatory budgeting, participatory platforms, and citizen advisory boards. For inspiration, you can refer to projects supported by the UIA (in thematic areas close to both topics  - link in first reply above), as former EU instrument on the basis of which the EUI model is built, that already included this strong emphasis on partnership.

The prompts for both topics are also explicit on where a participatory approach could be the most relevant:

• On energy transition when referring to activities ‘maximizing stakeholders and citizens’ engagement’ and for example energy communities;
• On technologies in the city when referring to activities ‘consolidating the multilevel and multistakeholder governance, ensuring an effective participatory democracy and stimulate innovation and competitiveness’ and for example citizens’ active involvement in strategic planning and decision making or new partnerships between cities, universities and local businesses, to create/enhance innovation and smart specialisation dynamics.

Highlighting the relevance of your innovative solution to the objectives outlined in local, regional or national programmes (funded by the ERDF as same source of EU funding than the EUI and/or by other Cohesion policy instruments, such as the Cohesion Fund, the European Social Fund or the Just Transition Fund).

It is strongly recommended to support your case that this solution fits into wider Cohesion policy goals and the way these have been shaped in your local, regional and/or national context. The purpose is to justify the demonstration potential of your project to inspire on the use of the funding available in identified Cohesion policy programmes. These considerations are key, and weighted as such, as part of the ‘innovativeness and relevance’ strategic assessment of proposals (see sub-criterion 1.6 of section 3.2.2 of the EUI guidance).

More information on Cohesion policy in your country is available via National single portals - European Commission (europa.eu). Summary of all Cohesion policy programmes can also be found at Inforegio - Programmes (europa.eu)). 

New infrastructure is permitted in an EUI-IA project, provided it aligns with the Call's topic. For instance, a project addressing the prompt "retrofitting of public buildings and the housing sector, and other energy measures encouraging real estate companies, businesses, and/or individuals to make such types of investments" would not be suitable if it solely focused on delivering new housing units or buildings without incorporating retrofitting of existing buildings to reduce energy demand. This does not mean new infrastructure is incompatible with the Call as a whole; it simply needs to complement a solution that aligns with the key objectives of the Call topic.

The prompts are not prescriptive. Nevertheless, they are there to support urban authorities in developing proposals.