Deadline: 30-Oct-2025
The Pioneer City Partnership for Sustainable Small and Medium-Sized Towns to enter into a partnership with the Climate and Energy Fund – a public-public cooperation (ÖÖK) – to accelerate the implementation of common climate, energy, and environmental goals.
This requires an integrated approach that addresses various dimensions such as climate protection, climate change adaptation, the circular economy, sustainable energy supply, sustainable mobility, biodiversity and soil protection, resource conservation and high-quality building culture, green finance, socially inclusive transformation processes, and the strengthening of regional economies.
The Pioneer City Partnership for Sustainable Small and Medium-Sized Towns call for proposals is part of the joint mission “Climate-Neutral City” in cooperation with the Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure (BMIMI).
This call for proposals aims to provide a research impetus to build up additional resources, capacities and know-how in ambitious small and medium-sized towns and to promote knowledge exchange. Pioneer cities in the partnership must be committed to significantly increasing and accelerating their efforts to achieve climate neutrality, climate change adaptation, and a circular economy – based on an integrated approach. It is important that the level of ambition is significantly higher than the status quo and can serve as a model for other cities and municipalities.
Objectives
- Establishment of partnerships with Austrian small and medium-sized towns (10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants) and joint participation in the national mission “Climate-Neutral City”
- Acceleration of implementation projects through impulses from the RTI through the integration of different various dimensions (climate neutrality, climate change adaptation, circular economy, etc.)
- Identify and initiate system adaptation needs to achieve climate neutrality
- Establish new formats and processes for knowledge building and collaborative learning
Goals
- To promote implementation in the areas of climate protection, climate change adaptation and the circular economy to achieve system transformations.
- Effective capacities must be built up and embedded in structures. This requires close Coordination and consistent, decisive action between the political and administrative levels of a city.
- Urban administrative structures must be further developed to ensure that climate neutrality, climate change adaptation, and the circular economy are integrated into a city’s decision-making processes.
- A shared learning and transfer process must be initiated and enabled through stakeholder processes, collaborations, exchanges with other cities, the federal states, the Climate and Energy Fund, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and other relevant stakeholders. Cooperation networks, alliances, and participation in programs (KEM, KLAR, LEADER, e5, etc.) must be established and maintained.
- Pioneer cities serve as learning and experimentation spaces for innovations and solutions, which can then be used for other contexts and cities should be replicable, transferable and scalable.
- Innovation activities are incorporated into municipal action and decision-making practices, valued there and strengthen the competitiveness of the regional economy.
- The implementation projects are based on various (innovative) financing instruments and models. The aim is to make the best possible use of the national and international funding landscape, thus enabling additional funding and the launch of complementary initiatives. This should subsequently activate public and private sector investments (including from the private sector) and contribute to the development of climate-neutral cities.
- Target group-oriented communication and public relations work for sustainable cities must be carried out and supplemented by participatory processes that enable the active involvement of citizens.
Funding Information
- Total Budget: Around 3.6 million euros.
- Financing is provided in the form of a financial transfer and amounts to a maximum of 500,000 euros per project.
Eligible Costs
- Personnel costs
- Material costs (e.g. office rent, infrastructure, printing costs)
- Third-party costs
- personnel-related third-party costs (e.g. personnel from outsourced organizational units)
- other third-party costs limited to a maximum of 20% of the total costs (e.g. orders for support in
- Events)
- Travel expenses (e.g. hotel costs, travel expenses)
Ineligible Costs
- Investment costs for projects
- Overhead costs
Ambition levels and SDGs
- Ambition 1: Research and implementation
- The aim of Ambition 1 is to create a central contact point in the city administration through targeted capacity building that initiates, supports and carries out research and implementation projects in order to accelerate climate neutrality, climate change adaptation and the circular economy in the city.
- These projects should build on the climate neutrality roadmap already developed or comparable strategic preparatory work and consistently implement the measures defined therein.
- Ambition 2: Governance
- The aim is to establish climate neutrality, climate change adaptation and the circular economy as cross-cutting themes in urban (and urban-regional) governance and to effectively anchor them in all relevant areas – decisions, strategies, processes, measures and structures through innovative approaches.
- Responsibilities and the municipal organizational structure are to be further developed through administrative innovations within the framework of the cooperation. As part of the partnership, the responsible persons must identify and analyze within their municipal structures (governance) which regulations and processes require revision, adaptation, or redesign. The aim is to identify and eliminate barriers and obstacles on the path to achieving climate neutrality, climate change adaptation, and a circular economy, and to utilize existing and emerging potential.
- Ambition 3: Learning environment
- The goal is to consistently embed climate neutrality, climate change adaptation, and the circular economy in cities and establish them as a national and international learning environment for cities, municipalities, federal states, and the federal government.
- Pioneer cities should serve as role models, providing practical insights, data, and good practice examples, thus specifically supporting knowledge transfer, training, and implementation in other cities and regions.
Eligibility Criteria
- This call for proposals is aimed at Austrian cities with between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants and is intended to conclude a cooperation agreement.
- Participation from cities that have already completed preparatory work, such as developing a climate neutrality roadmap, is particularly welcome. Cities with existing cooperation agreements are not eligible to apply.
Evaluation Criteria
- Quality of the project
- Ambition
- Personnel and organization
- Relevance for the tender
For more information, visit Climate and Energy Fund.