REGEN will pave innovative pathways for the decarbonisation of European neighbourhoods and cities, tackling urgent socioeconomic, climate and built environment challenges by designing a multifaceted Toolbox leveraging cutting-edge digital technologies and life cycle sustainability assessments while engaging citizens and influencing behavioural change. The proposed holistic methodology and framework (Assessment Framework for Urban Regeneration) will validate a catalogue of 50 urban regeneration interventions. This framework will be able to estimate the current revitalisation potential of urban infrastructure, with monitoring using digital twins and evaluation based on sustainability methodologies, facilitating the benchmarking and selection of appropriate intervention strategies. Additionally, the REGEN solutions will be applied with the end-users and all stakeholders in mind, being complemented by social and humanities studies, citizen science, participative design approaches and living labs. The indicators chosen for the assessments will rely on proven life cycle methods, extended to social and economic impacts. This will achieve a holistic sustainability approach, with the end-user being an active participant in the evaluation and validation. REGEN will apply this in 4 demonstration sites where individual buildings, streets and districts are to be constantly monitored for their energy, mobility and circularity. The net benefits of applied interventions will be monitored and assessed on an individual basis. The results will be upscaled at city level, informing key policy orientations already in place and paving the way for broader deployment. An additional 10 virtual regeneration projects will be used to replicate the regeneration interventions and assess their applicability across the EU. This will strengthen the credibility of the interventions catalogue and provide indispensable for knowledge transfer on delivering resilient urban regeneration.

Within Horizon Europe, the Built4People partnership (B4P) aims, among other objectives, to connect to a set of national or regional Innovation Clusters in viWithin Horizon Europe, the Built4People partnership (B4P) aims, among other objectives, to connect to a set of national or regional Innovation Clusters in view of maximizing innovation impacts. The NEBULA projects will build upon this B4P and the New European Bauhaus initiative to activate and nurture a network of B4P Innovation Clusters, by implementing: - Improved visibility, adoption and uptake of innovative solutions that are in line with the New European Bauhaus thanks to increased awareness on benefits from innovation and better access to co-financing - Intensified, cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary peer-learning from front runners as well as cross-border cooperation and networking, - preparation for the long-lasting activities of the network of B4P Innovation Clusters and the integration of the next clusters. This project will therefore accompany a first batch of existing and emerging clusters to increase their maturity along five dimensions: full value-chain coverage; cross-sectoral integration; combined local and national/EU networking; cross border connections; and access to testbeds and demo spaces such as pilot buildings and living labs. NEBULA will support these clusters through ‘maturity push’ activities including peer learning on New European Bauhaus concepts, support to open innovation, business & finance help desk, match-making and promotional events. A minimum of 5-7 clusters will be supported by NEBULA, some already identified being part of the consortium. At least 1 of them will reach full maturity on the 5 dimensions listed above, thus becoming a B4P Front runner, model for replication. NEBULA consortium, that involves two contractual partners of the B4P partnership, will elaborate a Strategic Replication Plan to reach the contractual target of 10-15 B4P Innovation Clusters by 2028.

United Circles project will demonstrate, with 46 partners across 14 countries + 1 international body, three Industrial-Urban Symbiosis value chains, to upcycle of urban Food Waste, urban Wastewater Solids, and urban Construction & Demolition Waste (C&DW). To close urban and industrial water loops to reduce freshwater use in drought prone regions, and integrate energy co-generation technology in upcycling pathways. Made possible by advancing innovative technologies from TRL5 to TRL7 in combined integrated value chains, to enable zero waste cities and a decarbonised Process Industry. The value chains cover collection, sorting, upcycling and production of new upcycled products. To demonstrate how: 1) a demolish building’s C&DW can be transformed into a new 2 storey 3D printed building with upcycled low-carbon cement, cement bonded particle boards, and insulation foam; 2) a waste-water treatment plant can become a resource recovery centre for all materials, water and energy, in an integrated manner. By supplying high quality gas to the local gas grid, by providing upcycled cellulose as industrial feedstock to pulp & paper industries, and by providing clean water and fertilizer for agriculture; 3) food waste in the form of used cooking oil can be upcycled in a first application of 2nd generation biorefinery to create novel fully biodegradable and food waste origin bioplastic products for complete replacement of fossil fuels. The United Circles 3 value chain demonstrators will each be integrated in a Hub 4 Circularity, that will underpin their Industrial-Urban networks governance and evolution, using advanced governance frameworks, feasibility towards financing methodologies, digital tools, social and environmental innovations, and a material and products observatory. The H4C in the proposal will enable business to territory plans, with their regional stakeholder network, that seek to expand the demonstrator integrated technologies to higher TRL levels.