Finnova Foundation

5th Call for Proposals Urban Innovative Actions

Urban Innovative Actions

The 5th Call for Proposals is open until December 2019 and is the last planned Call in the current programming period.

Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) is an initiative of the European Union that provides urban areas in Europe with resources to test new solutions for addressing urban challenges. For 2014-2020, the initiative has a total budget of EUR 372 million from the ERDF. The last open call, which launched on September 16th, is the last planned Call in the current period. The closure of the Call is 12 December 2019.

The aim of this initiative is to face all the employment, migration, demography, water and soil pollution challenges that the EU population living in cities, towns and suburbs faces. Thus, encouraging urban authorities with a local population of at least 50 000 inhabitants to go beyond traditional policies and services and to take risks experimenting the most innovative and creative solutions.

However, given the complexity of the urban challenges, urban authorities cannot act alone. It is important to involve stakeholders and experts when designing and implementing effective and innovative solutions so they can bring expertise and knowledge on the issue (agencies, organisations, institutions, NGOs, etc.).

Urban authorities get support from the UIA at two different levels:

  • Funding: UIA co-finances 80 % of the project’s activities, up to EUR 5 million from the ERDF.
  • Capturing and sharing the knowledge of the project: UIA is interested in understanding what worked in the implementation of your project and what did not work to share it with other urban policy-makers and practitioners across Europe.
Project topics

The type of projects that this initiative funds must be innovative, participative, of good quality, measurable and transferable. In addition, urban authorities in the framework of an UIA call for proposals should select only one of the proposed topics: air quality, circular economy, culture and cultural heritage, and demographic change. In order to support ERDF investment priorities and thematic objectives, the whole project should be considered as a support instrument for the ERDF thematic objectives and investment priorities.

Who can apply?

According to the Terms of Referene for previous calls, the following bodies are eligible to apply:

  • Any urban authority of a local administrative unit defined according to the degree of urbanization as city, town or suburb comprising at least 50,000 inhabitants;
  • Any association or grouping of urban authorities of local administrative units defined according to the degree of urbanization as city, town or suburb where the total population is at least 50,000 inhabitants. This include cross-border associations of different regions between Member States.
Application process

The application process is 100 % digital. In fact, only Application Forms submitted through the online Electronic Exchange Platform (EEP) will be considered by the Permanent Secretariat. The application for the fifth Call for Proposals for the UIA initiative consists of the following:

  • These terms of reference are available in all EU languages. However, in case of discrepancies, please note that the English version prevails.
  • Technical Guidance for the Electronic Exchange Platform (EEP).
  • There are detailed instructions for completing the application form available in all European languages in the EEP system itself. However, in case of discrepancies, please note that the English version is the prevailing one.

The deadline for submission of the application form and confirmation sheet is 12 December 2019, 14h00 CET.

To find out more about the application, it is very recommended to check the reference book for the UIA Initiative: the Guidance document is available here. You can also find more information in the documents of previous Calls.

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