Open Calls
CommuniCity Open Calls
CommuniCity project launched three rounds of Open Calls that provided grants for 101 innovative pilot proposals. The pilots leverage AI and other emerging technologies in addressing the needs of cities and communities. The Open Calls invited companies and associations to participate in a process of co-creation, where citizens, associations, city officials, and policy makers come together to improve the quality of life for citizens. A specific focus was given on addressing the EU Green Deal targets, and all proposals must have contributed to the societal, urban, technological, cultural, and economic development of Europe.
The Open Call proposal submission, selection, and approval was made in a transparent and competitive manner. CommuniCity Open Calls were open to all legal entities that could guarantee performance and fulfilled the criteria stated in the Invitation for Proposals.
There were three rounds of Open Calls in total. Each Open Call round selected a predetermined number of Pilot proposals to be funded.
First Open Call
The first round of Open Calls took place in the cities of Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Porto, and was based on needs identified in these cities. The objective of the First Open Call was to take advantage of the three partner cities’ extensive experience and capacity to deploy agile pilots of innovative solutions in real life settings. The learnings from this first round were used as the foundation for the other two Open Call rounds.
The First Open Call offered 13 Pilot Grants distributed among the cities of Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Porto. The grant amount was fixed at 12.500 Euros per Pilot.
Second Open Call
The second round of CommuniCity Open Calls mimicked and expanded the First Open Call process, adding four more cities to the piloting locations. These four additional cities identified local needs and introduced these as new themes for the Second Open Call, in addition to the themes presented by Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Porto.
This round utilised the First Open Call’s experience in order to share the best practices to the participating cities, and to expand the CommuniCity Piloting Toolkit for the European cities and beyond. With this enhanced set of tools, seven cities across Europe collaborated in piloting, with the initial three cities acting as coaches offering peer support to the four new cities. This round also promoted the pilots as well as encouraged cities and communities to join the CommuniCity piloting programme at the EU-Level Open Calls round.
Third Open Call
The third round of CommuniCity Open Calls expanded the piloting programme to full European Union level. The final Open Call round built on the learnings from the previous Open Calls, and presented a model for permanent piloting through open calls. The emphasis was in raising awareness and interest in deploying CommuniCity approach for increasing societal uptake of new technologies and solutions to match the needs of the cities and hard-to-reach communities.
The Third Open Call challenged cities and communities across Europe to put forward specific local needs and possible solutions to be tested resulting from European Union Research & Innovation outputs. The pilots received funding and support via a CommuniCity Toolkit, complemented by the expertise support from the network of CommuniCity partners. This final Open Call and funding was managed by OASC.
Status: CLOSED
Time for the next open call: