Eastern Mediterranean University, Urban Research and Development Center (EMU-URDC) attended the European City Initiative’s call for proposal meeting held in Sofia, Bulgaria. The European Union (EU) Commission organizes introductory/information meetings about the restructured EU grant programs with the intention of supporting ideas that adopt place-oriented and participatory approaches and offer creative, innovative and integrated solutions to climate change, demographic transformation, social inequality, health crisis, digital revolution and rapidly changing technology-related problems that threaten the sustainable development of cities. The European City Initiative, which will accept applications until 19 January 2023, announced the application requirements at the meetings organized in various EU cities under the title of “Application Seminars”.
Continuing to Devise Projects for EU Cities
The third of these meetings was held in Sofia, Bulgaria in the recent days. EMU-URDC Vice Director and Faculty of Architecture academic staff member Assist. Prof. Dr. Pınar Uluçay Righelato represented EMU during the event which was held at Intercontinatal Hotel. The opening speech of the event was delivered by Sofia Municipality authorities and INNOAIR project, conducted with first EU funds, was introduced to the participants. The fund that city municipalities with a minimum population of 50 thousand can apply; will support projects that are sustainable, innovative and applicable to different EU cities. The European City Initiative, which will offer a grant program of 120 thousand Euros in total for each project, invites the municipalities to devise projects with industry, non-governmental organizations, research centers, academia and other EU city municipalities.
Innovative Ideas to be supported
The fund allocated to the sustainable development of cities within the framework of EU Cohesion Policies continues to increase each period. In the period between 2014 and 2020, the EU Commission allocated 115 million Euro fund only to projects that support the transformation of cities. 17 million Euro of this fund was donated to various local authorities to support 980 projects targeting sustainable urban strategies. Adding more, the Innovative City Movement Incentive Fund is created with the goal of supporting creative and innovative ideas in cities during this period. In the period covering 2021-27, the EU Commission announced that they will give more support to projects targeting the city. Within the scope of 5 new strategies determined for this purpose, the EU Cohesion Policies package will support projects aiming for a smarter, greener, integrated, social and more urban Europe. The European City Initiative, created in this context, focuses on innovative ideas and how these ideas can be applied in different contexts and scales, while offering support programs to city authorities with the aim of knowledge management and capacity building in cities of different scales. It will also offer exchange programs in order to share the knowledge and experience gained on this subject.
Call for the Municipalities
Noting that they are ready to provide counselling during the Europe City Initiative Grant Program application process to TRNC municipalities which are in cooperation with EMU-URDC and meet the application conditions, EMU-URDC Vice Director Assist. Prof. Dr. Pınar Uluçay Righelato stated that our cities deserve to be more contemporary, livable and people-oriented campuses with aesthetic, sustainable and participatory projects, and that local governments have important duties in this regard. Expressing that EU grant programs can accelerate this movement, Assist. Prof. Dr. Uluçay Righelato called on the municipalities and added that they will meet with the municipalities that meet the application conditions after the local elections.