CommuniCity conducts a large number of innovation pilots in many local communities, both urban, peri-urban and rural, including two EU capitals, aiming to empower hard-to-reach and marginalized communities. It creates three cycles of increasing size, building on two dynamic networks of local administrations and living labs of all sizes. CommuniCity builds on recent highlighted and awarded European as well as national place-based and locally-driven innovation programmes, methods, living labs and platforms. It brings the learnings of these together, and devises an inclusive, community-driven, agile innovation and experimentation model. With this model it runs a large co-creation process, first involving local communities in the challenge definitions, then developing innovative solutions through open calls promoted at the European level as well as locally. It will create new insights into local community innovation processes as well as principles and models of how to scale these insights in inclusive and sustainably manners. In addition, CommuniCity will produce a large number of novel innovations anchored in the needs of the local communities, and an exemplary approach that is followed throughout Europe. The core partner cities are already leading and copied smart communities globally because of their diverse approach and ambition to co-create and share learnings. The same goes for the additional four cities and the two networks. The aim is to push the frontier of community-driven innovation much deeper in society and to the margins of society so that the development and testing of novel innovations better serves the needs of the whole society, based on European values, in the world.

ASCEND (Accelerate positive Clean Energy Districts) seeks to accelerate the implementation of positive, clean energy districts (PCED) for cities’ transition toward climate neutrality and social justice across Europe. ASCEND will: - Deliver two inclusive, affordable PCEDs in Lyon and Munich; - Successfully "bootstrap" implementation of PCEDs in the Multiplier Cities of Alba Iulia (RO), Budapest (HU), Charleroi (BE), Prague (CZ), Porto (PT), Stockholm (SE); - Scale-up solution packages for a large community of cities and investors across Europe; - Disseminate our results widely to the smart cities community. Our overarching goals are to i) Make cities healthier, inclusive and climate-neutral; ii) Speed up and scale up the deployment of cost-effective PCEDs solution packages. “Getting PCEDs done” across Europe entails the following actions for ASCEND: First, large-scale demonstrations in Lighthouse Cities (LHCs), using existing knowledge built by generation of Smart Cities Projects, offering well-proven and cost-effective solutions packages, scalable by design to cities across Europe. Second, developing our solutions packages across the entire life of the district: from design to implementation and maintenance, performances must be maintained and increased thanks to an urban orchestrator aiming to coordinate the ecosystem in the long run. Third, creating a PCEDs replication wave during ASCEND in our eight partnering cities by iterating between the development of solutions packages and deployment in LHCs and Multiplier cities (MCs) during the project and not after. MCs will achieve impact by bootstrapping their PCEDs during the project. Finally, triggering a PCED wave through outcome-driven collaboration with EC initiatives, such as Climate-Neutral and Smart City Mission, Covenant of Mayor, Smart Cities Marketplace, Scalable cities but also with the deployment of City Alliances in the eight cities, targeting small cities, not used to European projects.

SynchroniCity represents the first attempt to deliver a Single Digital City Market for Europe by piloting its foundations at scale in 11 reference zones - 8 European cities & 3 more worldwide cities - connecting 34 partners from 11 countries over 4 continents. Building upon a mature European knowledge base derived from initiatives such as OASC, FIWARE, FIRE, EIP-SCC, and including partners with leading roles in standardization bodies, e.g. ITU, ETSI, IEEE, OMA, IETF, SynchroniCity will deliver a harmonized ecosystem for IoT-enabled smart city solutions where IoT device manufacturers, system integrators and solution providers can innovate and openly compete. With an already emerging foundation, SynchroniCity will establish a reference architecture for the envisioned IoT-enabled city market place with identified interoperability points and interfaces and data models for different verticals. This will include tools for co-creation & integration of legacy platforms & IoT devices for urban services and enablers for data discovery, access and licensing lowering the barriers for participation on the market. SynchroniCity will pilot these foundations in the reference zones together with a set of citizen-centred services in three high-impact areas, showing the value to cities, businesses and citizens involved, linked directly to the global market. With a running start, SynchroniCity will serve as lighthouse initiative to inspire others to join the established ecosystem and contribute to the emerging market place. SynchroniCity takes an inclusive approach to grow the ecosystem by inviting businesses and cities to join through an open call, allowing them to participate on the pioneering market place enabling a second wave of successful pilots. They will strengthen the ecosystem by creating a positive ripple effect throughout Europe, and globally, to establish a momentum and critical mass for a strong European presence in a global digital single market of IoT-enabled solutions.