NetZeroCities LIFT: Leveraging Innovation & Financing for Transformation

Description

This programme is about enabling system conditions, and complementary supporting interventions to achieve the accelerated decarbonisation (substantive emissions reductions) required to achieve climate neutrality by 2030, by inducing change in governance, multi-actor approaches, citizen participation, finance, digital systems and/or organisational structures.   Activities eligible for funding are:  Interventions should consist of the following activities to be eligible for funding:  Innovative implementation activities to support climate-neutrality, including the deployment of cutting-edge (new or improved) technology, product, process, service, solution, policy, or governance model at city level, explored in a cross-sectoral and systemic manner.  Deployment of public and private capital in purpose-built capital structures that enable blended financing in the implementation activities.  Activities aiming to build cross-sector collaboration that advance new governance and deployment models.  Legal and financial expertise to structure/audit and de-risk project financial packages    Please note: proposed interventions may cover several or all of these descriptions of eligible activities – this list is intended to allow for flexibility in proposing interventions, rather than limiting proposed interventions to any one eligible activity alone.   Applicants will be requested at the point of submitting a proposal to describe and declare the links between their proposed interventions and the eligible activities as listed above.    For more information please refer to the Call Guidelines.

Beneficiary & submission

This Call for proposals is for Mission Cities to undertake a short-term, implementation-focused grant-supported programme of interventions focussed on innovation in enabling city transformation, in the context of the European Union (EU) Cities Mission.   Unlike the Pilot Cities Programme, which aimed at identifying and overcoming barriers to climate action in cities, similarly to the Enabling City Transformation (ECT) programme the Leveraging Innovation & Financing for Transformation (LIFT) programme is aimed at exploring and implementing enabling innovations for whole-city transformation, and that lead to practical, replicable learning at scale, and that can support many other European cities. Cities and city groups should therefore focus their proposals on building enabling factors and conditions for transformation in ways that other cities can practically use, and that will be replicable across the Mission.  Proposals will be selected to integrate the existing ECT portfolio of interventions that will address major Mission implementation challenges commonly emerging across Mission Cities.   How to submit a proposal?  The applications are submitted online via the grant management platform:  If not already registered with the system, use this link to register.  If you have previously registered with the system (i.e. for applying to one of the Pilot Cities Programme calls): please use this link (and bookmark it!) to log-in.  If you do not remember your password, please use these password reset instructions  Guidance on how to submit your application can be found through the following links:  How to register in the System?   FAQ & Instructions   Please note that any proposals submitted outside of the proposal submission system will not be accepted; and that the system will be locked after the deadline. If you experience technical difficulties, please consult the system guidance. If you are still unable to resolve your system issue, follow the guidance on how to raise a support request via appropriate channels. For all other non-technical related queries, please contact ect@netzerocities.eu .  Who can apply?  Only local authorities or city administrations selected to be part of EU Mission for climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030 (Mission Cities) are eligible to apply to and receive funding under this Call. For the avoidance of doubt, this call is addressed to designated Mission cities only and therefore these consortia may not include other city, district, or municipal authorities (i.e., ‘non-Mission’).   Please note: Administrations of a higher level of governance (i.e., a metropolis, region, or national/governmental departments) are eligible to participate as consortium partners where there is a formal governance link with the Mission City/cities leading or involved with the proposal. However, they do not count towards the eligible Mission City count (i.e., as related to the prescribed budget envelopes and the number present in the proposal) unless the metropolis or region is itself the Mission City, formally.  A group of Mission Cities (national or trans-national) may apply together in a consortium. However, in that case, one of the Mission Cities will have to be designated as the consortium leader for all administrative and process-related purposes. In the case of a group of cities applying together in one proposal, the size of the requested subgrant must follow the award amounts as stated at section 4.1 of the Call Guidelines.  Other organisations could also participate as members of a consortium led by a Mission City. These organisations could be, for example: research institutions, universities, SMEs, NGOs, associations, citizen groups or other relevant stakeholders involved in the implementation of the climate ambitions of a Mission City participating in the consortium.  For comprehensive information, including eligibility criteria, please consult the Call Guidelines.   Evaluation process  This Call will follow a three-stage evaluation and selection process, as described in paragraph 9 of the call guidelines:  Stage 1: Eligibility check  The eligibility check stage entails the assessment of pass/fail requirements . Proposals must comply to the full set of eligibility criteria to proceed to Stage 2.   Proposals that fail the eligibility criteria will not be considered further in the process and applicants will be informed of the outcome.  Stage 2: Evaluation and scoring of eligible proposals  Scores will be made against the individual assessment criteria (see 5.3) by at least two independent external experts, based on the submitted proposals. These experts are appointed from the pool of experts identified through an open call and contracted by the coordinator as part of the NetZeroCities project. The experts from this pool are deployed against all Calls for NetZeroCities sub-granting programmes. This evaluation is made using sub-criteria grouped into the three main categories of: Mandate to Act, Capacity to Act, and Impact.  The detailed criteria for assessment of proposals for the SGA-NZC LIFT programme’s financial support to third parties scheme is defined in section 5.3 of these Call Guidelines.  Stage 3: Award decision   The selection committee will select a cohort of interventions, to be added to the existing ECT portfolio, through a dedicated selection process. The cohort will be selected with the intention to support Mission Cities to overcome challenges to, experimenting with, and learning about, the implementation phase of the Cities Mission: i.e. enabling (Cities) Mission innovation implementation. It will also aim at complementing the existing cohorts of Pilot Cities (i.e. inter-cohort portfolio) selected through previous calls, creating opportunities to exploit learning and outcomes of these diverse interventions over the course of the programme.     The selection of the interventions to be supported through the subgrants will build on the review by independent external experts and the scores noted in Stage 2.   All submissions will be assessed fairly and transparently in the scope of the eligibility criteria, assessment of quality criteria, and strategic programme considerations as outlined in section 5.4 of the Call Guidelines. Decisions as to whether a proposal is accepted or rejected will be communicated as detailed in this document. 

Further information

Funding The total available budget under this call is 2 million Euros (EUR).   The minimum and maximum amount for subgrant funding to be allocated to a selected proposal through this Call will be no less than 500,000 EUR and not more than 1,500,000 EUR, depending on the expected scope and impact of the proposed projects, and according to the given budgeting envelopes and associated rules outlined below.  At least two legal entities should have budget / allocated subgrant in the proposal.  The requested subgrant allocation per legal entity not being more than two-thirds of the total subgrant requested.    Timeline:   28 July 2026, 12:00 CEST – call launch  24 August 2026, 12:00 CET – call deadline  11 September 2026 – decision communication and eligibility start date Up to 25 September 2026 - Award Agreement development  28 September 2026 – programme starting date  6 November 2026 – programme ending date    Info Session:   6 August 2026, 10.30-11.30 CEST (register)  Relevant documentation:   Call guidelines and supporting documentation, including templates to be attached to the application, are available at this link    Form of grant:  The grant is an action grant which takes the form of a lump sum grant for the completion of work packages.  Reimbursement will occur after proving the technical completion of the various work packages and that work was properly implemented with the foreseen results achieved.