SONNET aims to create an inter- and transdisciplinary understanding of the diversity and processes of social innovations in the energy sector (SIE). It assesses - critically and reflexively- the success, contributions and future potential of SIE towards sustainable energy transitions in Europe. SONNET investigates how, to what extent and under which enabling conditions diverse types of SIE may result in new breakthroughs or successfully help to overcome transition barriers; such as limited citizen engagement or slow adoption of new technologies. SONNET’s empirical research is informed by a novel conceptual framework combining insights from sustainability transitions, energy studies and social innovation literatures. It bridges qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches in an innovative multi-method research design. Across 30 qualitative in-depth case studies situated in six European countries, SONNET investigates the diversity, processes, success and contributions of SIE. Given its focus on urban areas as major hubs for SIE, SONNET conducts six transdisciplinary SIE city labs to experiment with new forms of SIE and learn about how multiple actors can harness the potential of SIE. In addition, based on three large-scale representative citizen surveys, SONNET assesses the future potential of SIE and derives implications for reconfiguring existing and developing new business models. SONNET synthesizes its findings in an integrated knowledge framework for a socio-economic, socio-cultural (incl. gender) and socio-political understanding of enabling and impeding conditions for SIE and SIE contributions when working towards accelerating sustainable energy transitions in Europe. Through a cutting edge co-creation, dissemination and exploitation strategy, SONNET ensures that its practical recommendations, tools and capacity building activities have a maximum impact on its key stakeholders such as citizens, SIE actors, policy makers, and businesses.

GreenDEMO sets out to study the new and innovative role of public administrations in coping with societal challenges, particularly in supporting democratic processes of societal change to reach green sustainability goals. The project aims to contribute to 'greener' democracies in Europe and to more democratic sustainability transition processes. GreenDEMO more particularly proposes to design, prototype, test and replicate organisational innovation in city administration in order to enable, stabilise and enhance capacities of public administration to act for climate neutrality and democratic stability. City administrations need to collaborate with stakeholders to set up local green deals. This is critical given that trust in public institutions is weakening (crisis of democracies). Moreover, even in a less challenging political climate, establishing effective political interventions in support of ambitious climate and green sustainability goals is a complex issue. Thus, there is a double pressure on democracies to secure effectiveness and democratic legitimacy. Current studies suggest that this requires public administration to build up "transformative capacities". One lever to build such capacities is organisational innovation, e.g. new structures or processes, or practices. Demo Cities (Mannheim, Bristol, Aalborg) commit to such organisational innovation and will work on demonstrators, while Fellow Cities (Glasgow, Aarhus, Bamberg, Schaerbeek, Poznan) will work on replication activities and roadmaps for their own organisational change process. We assume that cities, which prove to be able to innovate their approaches and work together with their stakeholders, will be in a better position to implement (effective) local green deals. This, in turn, is expected to increase trust in public bodies and hence might be an important mechanism to strengthen democracies.

It is now widely acknowledged that to make adequate and timely progress in the direction of biodiversity mainstreaming, three critical aspects – previously overlooked or insufficiently handled by supranational policies – need to be emphasised and further explored in their transformative potential: 1) The establishment and operation of bottom-up and especially City- and Community- driven initiatives, which may adequately complement the Country level National Sustainable Development Plans and Green Growth Strategies; 2) The introduction and refinement of appropriate methodologies, and capacity-building activities, to enable the engagement of all key societal stakeholders (notably including market players, citizens and local government actors) in concerted actions to restore the most compromised elements of the natural environments; 3) Continuous work on enabling nature-based solutions by identifying the connections, and addressing the disconnects, between biodiversity conservation and social, economic, and technological challenges. To meet the requirements of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and of the recent Commission proposal for a Nature Restoration Regulation, the UNP+ consortium proposes a 3-year long action research plan, engaging 11 academic partners and 5 European Cities as “Lighthouse” and “Greening” testbeds, ready to share knowledge and scale up from their ongoing experiences in UNP design and NBS implementation & scaling, to a next-generation strategy for urban and periurban ecosystem transformation, mainstreaming biodiversity, ecosystem services, and natural capital in urban policies and economies through adopting a whole of society approach.

C2G supports 8 cities to move away from a project-by-project NBS intervention approach towards the development of greening and renaturing strategies that (a) are cross-scalar and participatory (b) inform existing development agendas and policies, and (c) are implemented through demonstrators that create tangible impact on the ground for the local communities and broader ecosystem. This paradigm shift is founded on the operationalisation of Ecosystem Services (ES) in city decision-making at the district and city scale. Specifically, C2G assesses the current supply of ES in cities (e.g. flood and heat risk reduction, recreation) and runs targeted engagement activities to map community vulnerabilities, as perceived by stakeholders themselves. These vulnerabilities translate into key place-based priorities, i.e. the demand for ES. C2G works intensely to bridges this gap between supply and demand using districts as entry points. Considering that citizens experience life and meet their needs in this spatial scale, local greening contributions can significantly improve quality of life. A portfolio of projects is defined in the district scale (zoom-in), while coherence with the broader urban fabric, whether blue, green or grey, is maintained (zoom-out). In this way, C2G achieves cross-scalar ecological connectivity. Ultimately, each city will develop context-specific planning guidelines and nature-inclusion strategies that will be turned into “Design solutions for blue-green-grey infrastructure with biodiversity net-gain”. Demonstrators will apply these solutions with citizens participating along the NBS life cycle, from vulnerability assessments in the early phases through to placemaking activities during implementation. This innovative participation approach ensures that interventions maximise perceived value and minimize trade-off risks (e.g. changes in streetscape uses). Satisfaction assessments shall serve as a validation of the success of the co-design approach.

Urban ReLeaf is an action-oriented mission to advance citizen-powered science as a central resource for inclusive urban green planning in support of local policy making, European strategies and monitoring systems (e.g., the Green Deal, Copernicus), and global efforts such as the SDGs (e.g., Target 11.7) and GEOSS. The project will: (i) assess current urban greening policy processes within six European cities and co-create solutions that use citizen observations to complement existing data ecosystems and decision-making; (ii) support the validation and long-term inclusion of active and passive data from citizens for urban environmental monitoring within authoritative data streams, including GEOSS & Copernicus; (iii) Mobilize and empower communities through widespread participation in issues of public interest surrounding urban green infrastructure; (iv) develop a community of practice around topics related to the use of citizen observations for urban planning to foster knowledge exchange and develop capacities across multiple sectors; (v) produce flexible and innovative governance solutions to help scale-out inclusive urban green transitions in support of the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals; and (iv) promote recognition, adoption and trust of citizen observations and other novel data ecosystems for environmental monitoring to trigger innovation within public institutions. The project is coordinated by IIASA, who led the WeObserve project, and involves partners from previous successful H2020 citizen observatory projects and as well as six cities (Athens, Cascais, Dundee, Mannheim, Riga Utrecht) that are willing to embrace new data streams for urban greening planning and policy making and to fully engage with citizens including marginalized and vulnerable groups. Urban ReLeaf is also supported by technology partners and those with strong links to Copernicus and GEO.