The first cohort of Pilot Cities from across twenty-one European Union and Horizon 2020 Associated Countries has been selected to embark upon unprecedented climate action, through the NetZeroCities Pilot Cities Programme. 

Discover the Pilot Cities profiles

Working individually or as clusters, these Pilot Cities will implement systemic and locally designed innovative actions that span multiple areas, from buildings to waste, and levers of change, including governance, finance and policy. The 53 cities are part of 25 applications that have been selected from a wide array of 103 applications involving 159 cities in total from 33 countries across the European Union and Horizon 2020 Associated Countries. 

You can click on each Pilot City profile picture to learn more about the activities of that specific Pilot.

Multi-City Pilot Activities

CoLAB – Committed to Local Climate Action Building 

Let’sGOvGOverning the Transition through Pilot Actions 

NEEST – NetZero Emission and Environmentally Sustainable Territories

UP-SCALE-Urban Pioneers – Systemic Change Amid Livable Environments

URBANEW: Multi-stakeholder Innovative & Systemic Solutions for Urban Regeneration Spain 

Individual Pilot Cities Activities

Net Zero Investment Co-Innovation Lab 

Budapest CARES – Climate Agency for Renovation of homES 

Blueprint for Net-Zero Apartment-block Neighbourhoods

FAASST-NZ : Facilitate trAnsition Actions maSSification Towards Net Zero 

Drammen City – Zero emission 2030

Galway City Net Zero Pilot City

District C: a Zero-carbon Commitment

Green and Carbon Neutral Building Transition Guide – Istanbul Model

Systemic Change Towards Sustainable Commuting in Lahti

The Initiation of Sustainable Energy Community for the City of Liberec

Limassol City Cooling Challenge: LC³

Net Zero Malmö Pilot

Together Towards Climate Neutrality

Creating NetZero Vision for Rivne

The North Star 

SCALE UP – Systematic Climate Action to Lower Emissions in Uppsala

NETZEROCITIES PILOT CITIES PROGRAMME

This two-year learning programme supports European cities to test and implement systemic and locally designed innovative approaches to rapid decarbonisation contributing to the EU Mission for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities.

COHORT 1 – CALL DOCUMENTS AND RESOURCES

Call related documents

This document includes a detailed overview of the programme, its approach, expected outcomes, and key concepts and terminology.

This document provides information on the aim, scope and approach of the call and clarifies how to submit a proposal, budget requirements and the review mechanism and decision making process.

This document explains the application budget and contains the main legal and financial rules for the NZC Call for Pilot Cities.

Information sessions

NZC consortium provided a series of information sessions to support and guide cities:

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

List of Abbreviations

City Expert Support Facility

Certificate on the Financial Statements

Development of a Simplified Consortium Agreement

Financial Support Agreement

Grant Agreement

Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

Horizon 2020 Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Horizon Europe Framework Programme

Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement

NetZeroCities

Pilot Cities Programme

Amendment

Significant changes to the agreement must be agreed upon by all parties involved and documented in an official and signed amendment. While not exhaustive, please find below examples of changes that could require an amendment to the subgrantee agreement:
  • Changes in the role and/or composition of the consortium (add/remove partner/linked third party, change in coordinator, including if those are reflected in the project description annex);
  • Changes to the project description diverting from the original project plan (adding/removing deliverables and/or tasks, changing work package for deliverables/tasks, changes to project’s schedule);
  • Budget transfer between partners or between cost categories (or both), which are linked to a significant change in the project’s plan (adding/removing cost categories, budget changes significantly affecting the original delivery).

The total amount of the award agreement cannot be increased. Any significant changes to the project budget will need to be reviewed by the PCP and CKIC Grant Management teams and in specific cases an amendment to the original agreement might be needed. Please inform us also in the case you foresee you will need a total smaller budget.

Throughout the duration of the project, new stakeholders can be added as long as the final total budget amount and the project timeline are not affected. Also the overall purpose of the pilot should not be significantly impacted by the addition.

Please note that including new partners in a selected project is strongly discouraged and is subject to the approval of the PCP team and an amendment to the original agreement is necessary. This should only be considered in cases where a new consortium partner is replacing an organisation that is leaving.
For cases where the prospective partner(s) will not be allocated any budget and will be involved in some of the activities, we invite you to manage the relationship via a separate contract independent from the Award Agreement.
Proposals – and their activities and tasks – can be refined prior to the signing of the Award Agreement as a result of your Boot Camp experience. Post award, any changes that you request will need to be reviewed by the PCP and CKIC Grant Management teams. A formal agreement amendment might be needed.
Please note that changes cannot result in a timeline extension or an increase in the grant award amount; and should not substantially change the overall scope as originally defined in your application.
Visit the Amendment section of this FAQ for further details.

CFS and Audit

A Certificate on the Financial Statements (CFS) is a certificate covering the actual costs and costs (or contributions) according to usual accounting practices contained in a financial statement. Under the project rules, it is required by all project leads to submit with the final reporting documentation.
Please note that costs for obtaining CFS are eligible for reimbursement.
The project lead is responsible for submitting a CFS audit report together with the final project reporting. Please note that this report is only required for the project lead, not for each partner in the consortium . The project lead should have the CFS costs planned in their project budget. If this is not the case, we confirm that these costs are eligible for reimbursement and should be reported together with costs of delivery.
The project lead is responsible for finding and contracting an independent auditor to perform the CFS audit. The auditor needs to use the CFS audit report template as per H2020 AMGA guidance.
The auditor costs vary across countries, types of companies and the project budget to review. In case of no previous experience with a CFS audit, we advise you to estimate around 1% of the amount granted. Please note that this is only indicative.

We invite you to consult the Financial Guidelines and H2020 AMGA, article 22. Only the lead beneficiary will be requested a Certificate on Financial Statements with their final reporting. The lead beneficiary can decide to assign the financial auditor also earlier on in the pilot and not only at the end, to gain confidence on the eligibility of the costs incurred so far.

Communication and Dissemination

We recommend you check the communication section of the Pilot Cities Programme handboook. When communicating externally you should add the EU flag and mention: “The project has received funding through NetZeroCities from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101036519”.

Beneficiaries of the grant are required to mention clearly the fact that they have received European funding in any publication and/or in other materials, or in the occasion of activities (conferences or seminars, etc.), for which the grant is used. The logo of the EU should also be visible.
Any communication or publication by the beneficiary, in any form and medium, including the Internet, shall indicate that sole responsibility lies with the author and that the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. Kindly refer to Article 38 — Promoting the Action — Visibility of EU Funding from page 280 of the Annotated Grant Agreement for full guidelines.
We have a Communication Playbook at your disposal.

If you’re unsure about branding or content of your NetZeroCities communications you may require assistance here.

Communication aims at promoting the pilot and its results, including the media and the public , such as your identified stakeholders, possibly engaging in a two-way exchange. Dissemination is the public disclosure of results, free for others to use to maximise your results’ impact. It could involve publishing an article or speaking in targeted conferences.

Contracting

We strongly recommend having the Consortium Agreement signed before signing the Grant Agreement. If this is not possible, the Effective Date can be retroactive and should be aligned with the Effective Date of the Grant Agreement: 1st of June 2023-31st of May 2025.
Each Party commits to this Consortium Agreement when signing the document on its own behalf. Still the Effective Date is the same for all Parties that have signed the document and we recommend this one to be 1st of June 2023.
Although every consortium should have a consortium agreement, we do not require you to submit it to us and it can be fully, internally agreed between the consortium parties.
A recommended CA template for Horizon 2020 projects is a DESCA model, although you do not have to use it.
The sub Award Agreement suggests two options related to the ownership of results, depending if the retained proposal is a sole or multi-stakeholder proposal.
Please keep one or the other option: 5.2 if your proposal is a multi stakeholders proposal with partners to whom to share with. Otherwise, simply keep the sole ownership described in Article 5.1.
Yes, as long as the partner’s involvement is relevant for the pilot activities.

Cost Eligibility and Financial Guidance

Ideally, the project work should be done by the beneficiaries and their partners, but if needed, they may rely on outside resources. Subcontracts concern the implementation of a pilot action task as described in the work plan of Annex 1 (i.e the organisation of an event), while purchase of goods and services only covers activities that are necessary for the beneficiary to implement said task (i.e consumables, the event’s catering or room booking). For further information, we invite you to consult the Financial Guidelines and H2020 AMGA.

The Lead Pilot City should use their internal timesheeting process, with timesheets that are adapted to the employment contract of each individual staff and to the respective national working time legislation. For more information on the best practices, please check the HE AGA Article 20, section 6 on Records for personnel costs.

Please note that the NetZeroCities Project follow the H2020/HE cost eligbility rules. Therefore, only costs actually incurred during the duration of the project, identifiable and verifiable, recorded in the accounts, are eligible for reimbursement. These include the following cost categories: personnel, travel and subsistence, equipment, other goods and services (purchase costs), and subcontracting. For more information, please consult the Financial Guidelines.

Please note that all beneficiaries need to follow their usual accounting practices, including the depreciation rules. In general, only the portion of costs directly attributable to the project and for the duration of the project can be depreciated and is eligible. For more information please consult the Financial Guidelines and the H2020 AMGA.

Costs for employees (or equivalent) are eligible as personnel costs if they fulfil the general eligibility conditions and are related to personnel working for the beneficiary under an employment contract (or equivalent appointing act) and assigned to the action. They must be limited to salaries, social security contributions, taxes and other costs linked to the remuneration, if they arise from national law or the employment contract (or equivalent appointing act). Daily rates will apply and will be based on a fixed number of 215 working days per calendar year:
– Daily Rate = Actual annual personnel costs for the person divided by (÷) 215
– Personnel Costs = Daily rate x days worked on the NZC grant
For more information, we invite you to consult the Financial Guidelines.
Eligible actual costs are always accepted, also incurred costs up to the end of the reporting window can be included as long as there are procedures in place to ensure costs are not counted twice (first as incurred and then as actuals). Actual costs are costs reported in interim reporting plus other actuals you have sustained to date.
Costs committed or incurred but not yet paid for could be costs for purchase orders submitted and not yet invoiced and paid. We recommend all costs to be invoiced before the end of the programme.
The reimbursement rate for the projects is 100%. Please review the budget template included in the Award Agreement for the list of the planned project costs. For more general overview, we invite you to consult the Call Guidelines and Financial Guidelines.
Each partner has a separate project budget as per the approved version of the proposal. Please consult the Annex to your FSA for more detail. In addition, the consortium lead is responsible for making sure that all pilot reported costs are eligible. Call Guidelines. Financial Guidelines.
There are no limitations for the proportionality between the budget categories. Please note that the participating organisations need to have the operational capacity to successfully implement the project. Therefore, subcontracting should be used to complement the work where there is no internal capacity within the consortium.
No single beneficiary participating in the pilot can retain more than two-thirds of the total budget (i.e. for a grant request of 1.5M EUR, no single organisation may have >1M allocated to them).
VAT is an eligible cost when not deductible. VAT deductions depend on the applicable National legislation, so each organisation participating in the NetZeroCities project should be aware of their VAT status. Invoicing shall follow the usual policies and practices of the organisation. Services can be bought externally, and the organisations have to follow their usual procedures (they also depend on the type of organisation: SMEs; Public Authorities). For more information, please consult the Financial Guidelines and the H2020 AMGA.
The lead city and signatory to the Award Agreement is the sole recipient of the grant payments, and is reponsible for distributing the funding between the consortium partners according to the consortium agreed schedule. We advise you to address this process through the consortium agreement.
It is not possible to include NetZeroCities project Consortium partners in the proposal as this increases the risk of double-funding (budget coming from the same Grant Agreement). For this reason, the pilot cities have the possibility to apply for CESF support and to allow NetZeroCities project consortium partners engage with pilot activities in their expertise areas. Funds (PMs and/or other costs related to the delivery of expertise) will be allocated to the relevant NZC project Consortium members within the existing GA (via amendment), rather than in the cities’ own pilot activities.
All project budgets need to be drafted and reported in Euro (see reporting template). Applicants established in countries outside of Eurozone must use the conversion rates as published in the Official Journal of the European Community; or if not available, the monthly accounting rate established by the Commission and published on its website. Please note that the project beneficiaries fully carry the exchange rate risk as these costs are not eligible for reimbursement.

General Information

The call specifies 2 years for the scope and budget, from 1 June 2023 to 31 May 2025. Though the pilot is not extendible, however, we anticipate the work of cities to continue, in the context of cities’ wider transformation and decarbonisation efforts.

You will receive 35% of the total award amount after award agreement signature. You will receive up to 35% of the total awarded amount after the approval of the interim reporting. You will receive a final payment calculated deducting the previous payments from total actuals spent after the approval of final reporting.

Once the PCP Cohort 1 Contacts list has been created any change to contacts can be requested only by the Lead contact through an email titled PCP Contact update – [NAME OF THE LEAD CITY] to pilotcities[@]netzerocities.eu​

In case a new user would like to access the proposal platform please follow the instructions at this link.
In case a user has access to the platform but would like to receive access to a specific proposal please follow these instructions.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning (MEL)

In the impact framework you will be asked to put in proposed targets for the line of the pilot activities (the two years). We will work with you to refine these if selected. These targets may include, depending on your pilot activities, GHG emissions reductions – it would therefore be sensible to conclude that you will need to be able to track this target over the course of the pilot activities.

Reporting

All reporting guidelines and templates will be made available to the participating cities 60 days in advance of the opening the reporting period. Until then draft reporting templates can be found in the reporting section of the handbook. We expect the reporting templates to differ between interim and final reporting.

Deliverables can be prepared in the local language. All reporting instead should be done in English. PCP team might request to view a deliverable as part of reporting and if it’s only available in the local language, please include a translation summary.

We don’t generally require you to submit deliverables when completed or during the reporting period unless necessary to support the technical reporting, for example when the deliverables represent aspects that cannot be demonstrated as progress in the interim and final reporting fields.

Complaints and Appeal Policy

If you have a complaint or would like to appeal the decision made about your application to the Pilot Cities Programme, please click here for our Complaints and Appeal Policy.

If you have any additional questions you can reach out to us via email!