40% of all energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the European Union arise in private and public buildings. Thus, major advancements have to be made in this sector to reach the EU’s climate and energy targets. Energy-efficient buildings will also contribute to the vision of secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy for citizens and businesses as well as generating additional societal, environmental and economic benefits. To strengthen policies that promote retrofitting and modernizing existing buildings, the EU has adopted the Directive 2012/27/EU on Energy Efficiency (EED). It requires EU Member States and candidate countries to establish a long-term strategy for mobilizing investment in the renovation of the national building by 30 April 2014, and every 3 years thereafter. These action plans are an integral part of a country’s National Energy Efficiency Action Plans. As of May 2015, 27 EU Member States have adhered to the requirement of Article 4, EED, and submitted their national building renovation strategy, albeit most did not meet the April deadline and some submitted their strategies as late as March 2015. However, the requirements to prepare these renovation strategies appear to have overburdened most EU member states. According to an analysis conducted by the Buildings Performance Institute Europe, only five countries have at least adequately complied with the five core elements described in Article 4 of the EED. To date, no renovation strategy has been submitted that can count as a ‘best practice’ and provide orientation for other countries. The project EmBuild (Empower public authorities to establish a long-term strategy for mobilizing investment in the energy efficient renovation of the building stock) is designed to empower public authorities at local, regional and national level, to formulate renovation strategies for the building sector that foster deep renovation and facilitate the acceleration of the renovation.

LoGov aims to form an international and intersectoral training and research network in order to provide best-fit practices for local governments to address the changing urban-rural interplay and manage its impacts. As a global Consortium composed of eight European and nine non-European partners, we seek to (1) to identify, evaluate, compare and share practices in five major local government areas (local responsibilities, local finances, local government structure, intergovernmental relations and people’s participation); (2) to encourage the effective application of the best-fit practices by local governments; (3) to strengthen international and intersectoral collaborative research; (4) to enhance the career perspectives of the staff involved by increasing their mobility both within the academic and the non-academic sectors and between these sectors. LoGov’s methodological approach relies on a comprehensive comparative analysis that draws on findings from 15 countries or wider regions on six continents, the extensive involvement of local policy-makers through local government associations and a multi- and interdisciplinary approach that is facilitated by the Consortium’s expertise in four disciplines (public law, political science, public administration and economics). The training strategy of LoGov is based on both secondment-related and network-wide activities. The strategy combines well-established events with newly developed transferable and research skills training, including open science, communication and research transfer training. To achieve the maximum impact, LoGov’s dissemination strategy targets both the wider scientific community and local policy-makers. It does so when sharing the key training result of widening career perspectives and the main research result of providing best-fit practices for local governments. These contribute to making them more resilient in light of changing urban-rural relations, a primary societal challenge of our times.