Energy Cities joins the New European Bauhaus initiative

The European Commission’s President Initiative the New European Bauhaus (NEB) has been on everyone’s mouth in Brussels since its launch at the end of 2020. One would say there are good reason for that, at least on paper:

• It aims at bringing the much-needed human and cultural element in the EU Green Deal;
• It wants to break silos and facilitate interdisciplinary and knowledge-exchange all over Europe;
• It should redefine creativity and beauty by finding affordable, inclusive and attractive design solutions for climate related challenges.

The initiative is now concluding its design phase, during which the European Commission was in listening mode collecting best practices, concrete projects that already embody the NEB concept of “beautiful, sustainable, together”, and aggregating European organisations and other entities into a now wide community of practice.

After many conversations, exchanges and information sessions organised at all levels, they launched of the European Bauhaus prizes “to capitalise on the existing wealth of knowledge, experience and capacities as much as to call for new visions, ideas and solutions”. The call for individuals and organisations – cities included! – to submit their project closed on 31 May. The design phase will be followed by the implementation of at least five pilots that are expected to bring the NEB to life in different Member States.

Energy Cities decided to look at the initiative from a city perspective. How can local governments take the most out of the NEB? That is why we organised a members-only webinar on May 17^th with the participation of Borislava Woodford and Dagmar Croes from the NEB partnership team (European Commission’s Joint Research Centre). Thanks to our speakers, members and partners discovered the initiative, but also the funding opportunities that will be soon coming their way (starting in autumn 2021) channelled via the new Horizon Europe programme and the EU Regional Development Funds.

More recently, we also became official partners of the NEB. We hope this will allow us to follow the initiative closely and have a more active role to shape it together with our member cities!

Want to know more about the latest financing opportunities for cities? Have a look at our new publication!