Funding programme

The New European Bauhaus Initiative brings citizens, experts, businesses, and institutions together to reimagine sustainable living in Europe and beyond.

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Call overview

This call aims to advance the implementation of sufficiency measures in the built environment by enabling the effective mapping and utilisation of vacant and under-used spaces.

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Background

The New European Bauhaus (NEB) was launched in 2021, striving to translate the European Green Deal into tangible change on the ground. This policy and funding initiative was further strengthened in the political guidelines for the European Commission 2024-2029 under the goal Supporting people, strengthening our societies and our social model.

The political guidelines highlight that the NEB can bring sustainability together with inclusion and affordability, and creativity with innovation. Challenges like the housing crisis or the green transformation are addressed by putting people’s needs first, with the goal to improve their lives. The NEB also contributes to creating lead markets for the Clean Industrial Deal by considering embodied greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, the NEB fosters the development of innovative solutions in the built environment and beyond.

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Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Vacant and under-utilised spaces in buildings and other physical spaces in the built environment^[1] are easier to map, enabling better informed and effective decision-making in the built environment.
• Sufficiency measures^[2], their non-technical barriers as well as their environmental, economic and social impacts are better understood by the built environment professionals such as real estate actors, urban planners or designers.
• Validated sufficiency measures, integrating circular economy principles, lead to an absolute reduction in demand of the built environment for energy, raw materials, land, water, floor space, and other resources; while extending the lifecycle of spaces, buildings, and infrastructures.

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Scope

Sufficiency is a set of policy measures and practices which reduce the demand for energy, materials, land, water, and other natural resources, while delivering well-being for all within planetary boundaries. It represents an integrated approach to sustainability and circularity, acknowledging and balancing the interplay of decarbonisation and equity.

In the built environment, floor space is considered as a resource. Sufficiency measures seek to optimise the use of existing (vacant and under-utilised) spaces, buildings, and infrastructures^[6]. These measures lead to an absolute reduction in demand for new-built floor space^[7], reducing resource consumption, embodied and operational carbon emissions, and other environmental impacts in the built environment. By alleviating strain on land resources, sufficiency measures can help address social issues, such as housing shortages, and reduce infrastructure costs for municipalities.

The potential of sufficiency measures in the built environment is yet under-explored due to data constraints, limited understanding of their impacts, and insufficient knowledge exchange.

Proposals are expected to address all of the following:

• Test and validate an approach to map and quantify vacant and under-utilised spaces with high sufficiency potential in the built environment.
• Test and validate at least two sufficiency measures that optimise, repurpose, or expand the use and functionality of space. Proposals are expected to test the proposed sufficiency measures in at least three neighbourhoods in urban, peri-urban and rural areas located in at least three Member States or Associated Countries.
• Quantify the potential for the proposed sufficiency measures to contribute to an absolute reduction in demand for floor space and resources (including, as a minimum, energy, raw materials, land, and water) in the built environment.
• Propose and validate solutions to overcome non-technical barriers in the built environment towards sufficiency measures (e.g. regulatory barriers or acceptance).

Proposals are expected to follow a participatory and transdisciplinary approach through the integration of different actors (such as public authorities, local actors from the targeted neighbourhoods, civil society, private owners, etc.) and disciplines (such as architecture or design, arts, (civil) engineering, etc.).

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Proposals are expected to dedicate at least 0.2% of their total budget to share their intermediate and final results and findings with the Coordination and Support Action 'New European Bauhaus hub for results and impact' (HORIZON-MISS-2024-NEB-01-03).

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Eligibility

To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:

• the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
• the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
• countries associated to Horizon Europe;
• low- and middle-income countries.

See specifics in the General Annexes document, page 9.

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Consortium composition

Only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:

• at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State; and
• at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

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Budget

The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 8.00 million.