Europe-China Joint Call for Proposals: Sustainable Urbanisation in the Context of Economic Transformation and Climate Change

Within the framework of the JPI Urban Europe and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NFSC), ANR is launching, in collaboration with 8 european funding agencies from 8 countries and NFSC, an Europe-China Joint Call for Proposals to finance research projects dealing with sustainable urbanisation in the context of economic transformation and climate change.  

This call for proposals addresses the challenges of sustainable urban development, while the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development launched a « New Urban Agenda » with its focus on socially, economically and environmentally sustainable and inclusive cities for all. United Nation 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Developement also emphasises the necessity to plan cities so as to foster community cohesion, personal security and to stimulate innovation and employment.

In answer to the global urbanisation challenge, NSFC and JPI Urban Europe have agreed to work towards a long-term cooperation programme in the area of sustainable urbanisation, with different topics addressed in time. This cooperation is based upon the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) of JPI Urban Europe and the 13th Five-Year Plan of NSFC. The first action of this work consists in setting up a Europe-China joint call about the strategic theme of ‘Sustainable Urbanisation in the Context of Economic Transformation & Climate Change’.

The aims of this partnership are the following :

• Establish a common research and innovation community to address key issues of sustainable urban development;
• Create and validate knowledge on integrated urban development and build capacities in cities and municipalities in Europe and China on new urban practice; and
• Fund research and innovation projects that contribute to the agendas of NSFC and JPI Urban Europe by addressing common issues of both regions and/or testing concepts against the different requirements of Chinese and European cities.

The association of stakeholders (companies, municipalities, non-governmental organizations ...) in projects is strongly encouraged.

Projects should focus on one or more of the following themes:

• theme 1: Climate change and new urban economies;
• theme 2: Transformation of energy systems and strengthen urban circular economies;
• theme 3: Urban public administration and services innovation;
• theme 4: Urban data management.

Ten countries planned to participate in this call: China, Austria, Belgium, France, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and United Kingdom.

Projects funded under the present call will be Sino-European collaborative actions with a minimum consortium size of two (and maximum three) Chinese partners (from different institutions) on the level of professors (coordinated by one principal investigator (PI) who is partner in the project) and a minimum of two European partners (from different European countries). For the coordination of the projects, the applicants will have to define one Chinese and one European researcher or organisation to act as responsible coordinators of their consortium for each of the funders (NSFC and JPI Urban Europe).

Within each selected consortium, funding for participating researchers will be provided by their respective national funding agencies in accordance with their terms and conditions of funding. Thus, the ANR will fund only the French teams.