GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

The successful proposal should:

• Building on the work of Horizon 2020 projects and their task forces, take stock of the state the existing urban and peri-urban ecosystems and their services and identify direct (urban development pressure etc.) and indirect drivers of loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services at local level (policy, spatial regulations, financial incentives, land management practices, etc.);
• Develop a replicable methodology for cities and urban areas across Europe to co-design pathways, a shared long-term vision, an integrated strategy with policies and an action plan (e.g., with responsibilities, timeline and financing) towards the urban ecosystem restoration targets as formulated in the Commission proposal for a nature restoration law;
• Include in the methodology the necessary mapping and assessment methods, economic and co-creation governance models to co-develop and prioritise i. combination of cost effective and efficient solutions that will enable to co-implement the strategy and to co-monitor the delivery; ii. innovative solutions and governance models to integrate systematically the strategies in the public, private and people decision making processes, such as public procurement, transport and climate policies, spatial regulations, land management decision, market incentives, etc; iii. innovative financing and business models;
• Co-develop and test the methodology in a representative sample of cities across EU with local stakeholders from the whole society that will enable the uptake of the models and tools developed across EU and EU regions, thus supporting EU territorial cohesion;
• Citizen science approach could be used for this purpose;
• Identify the skills and building capacity needs at the local and regional levels, the potential for job creation as well as existing capacity building programmes, with an eye at the inclusion of marginalised communities and at the gender dimension;
• Propose how urban greening plans and spatial planning, including regulations and building code, can act as enablers of the development of NBS market;
• Disseminate outcomes and capacity building activities across EU, connecting with the relevant platforms such as recommended in the EU guidance for urban greening plans, as well as with the “Cities with nature platform”.