About the community + programmes
It consists of 5 schemes and invites all partners from the knowledge triangle.
The first part is the city club which is a shared platform for cities where they can collaborate, exchange idea, develop solutions. They can then be tested in cities, acting as living labs and serving as an inspiration to urban areas.
Just like with the other 7 innovation communities, the innovation scheme takes the largest chunk of the pie. In preparation of the innovation strategy, over 250 future challenges for cities have been defined and these haven been put in 9 categories:
- Active Mobility
- Intermodality
- Mobility infrastructure
- Mobility for all
- Pollution reduction
- Sustainable city logistics
- Creating public realm
- Future mobility
- Mobility and energy
Through calls for projects, the community is appealing for proposals that can deliver innovative ideas to solve these challenges and turn them into real life applications.
The third part is about educating people. They have set-up an academy, a masters course, a doctoral course and a competence centre to train the different types of students and workers in the field of urban mobility.
For business creation they have set up two programmes. The accelerator programme aims at faster market use of products, services and processes and has the main advantage that it gives the innovator or entrepreneur to cities, mobility players and investors. The Scalethenglobal programme on the other hand is looking for mobility start-ups that want to scale-up their business and take it to the next level.
The final cornerstore of this community is ‘the factory’ which is still in the development phase. It will draw up report based on a urban mobility assessment model (UMAM) which can help cities to decide on which steps and measure to take in order to improve their mobility systems.
How to get involved?
The EIT publishes regularly calls for proposals for these different programmes. You can find out the opportunities and latest news at the webpage of the innovation community https://eit.europa.eu/our-communities/eit-urban-mobility
The headquarter of this innovation community is in Barcelona but there is a regional hub in Helmond which serves as a point of contact for interested parties from Flanders. This is their mailadress west@eiturbanmobility.eu
You can also attend or watch InnoveEIT, the annual conference of the EIT where you can meet other members of the communities and experts of the EIT itself.
Finally you can contact the NCP for mobility, alfons.vanbesien@vlaio.be
