Call for Proposal: Zero-pollution Cities

Deadline: 11-Feb-2025

The European Commission is seeking proposals to deliver better and innovative local measures against pollution through, among others, improved knowledge on the exposures of citizens to pollution and improved health impact assessments and strategies to reduce health impacts related to air, water, soil and/or noise pollution.

Scope

• Cities are concerned by various types of pollution, including air, water, soil and noise pollution, and their negative impacts on human health and the environment. Many of these pollutants emanate from the same sources as greenhouse gas emissions being tackled in the context of the EU Mission Climate-Neutral Smart Cities, so it is clear there are potential environmental co-benefits from reducing GHG emissions. Designing effective policies to protect city dwellers from pollution depends on solid evidence as well as on cooperation and communication between and with policy makers and citizens.
• Due to resource constraints, city administrations may often need to prioritise between different actions on different forms of pollution – and for this a solid risk-based evidence-base of the exposure to, impacts of and measures against pollution will allow to arrive at more informed and cost-effective local measures. These measures are often closely connected and affected by energy policy choices demonstrating the benefits of holistic approaches in for instance the planning, budgeting and assessment of costs and benefits in environmental, energy and climate policies at local level.
• More informed, coherent and targeted local measures will help European cities to deliver environmental co-benefits under the EU Mission for Climate-Neutral, Smart Cities, comply with or exceed EU legislative standards for air and water quality, and supporting the delivery of environmental objectives such as the targets of the EU Zero Pollution Action Plan and commitments under the Green City Accord.
• In order to address these needs, individual projects must address at least two of the following areas:
  • Improved health impact assessments to highlight and attempt to monetize the (co-)benefits and socio-economic impacts of zero pollution measures, in combination with climate neutrality policies, contributing to better ex-ante cost-benefit analysis and increasing public acceptance of measures.
  • Measurement and modelling methods for more precisely assessing exposure and risk-based health impacts at regional and/or local level (should deliver results that can be communicated to the wider public as well).
  • More precise evidence on exposure, notably of vulnerable population groups, and making health impact assessments easily comparable.
  • Exploration of the effectiveness of dynamic abatement strategies by monitoring changes in pollution levels, complemented by citizen science / observations.
• All projects are required to:
  • Develop methods and tools that can swiftly be deployed and used by cities and regional authorities. Once implemented they should help policy makers prioritise actions, and address social aspects of zero pollution policies,
  • Support implementation of zero pollution policies by overcoming barriers to behavioural change which natural science and evidence alone cannot overcome. New approaches to address these barriers should be explored from the angles of behavioural economics, psychology, communication and organisational behaviour, with a view to inform effective local and regional zero pollution policies.

Expected Outcome

• Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
  • Methods for more precisely assessing exposure to air, water, soil and/or noise pollution, health impacts and public information at regional and/or local level;
  • Methods for better assessing exposure of vulnerable groups (including due to socio-economic context) to air, water, soil and/or noise pollution at regional and/or local level, enabling more precise evidence to inform health impact assessments;
  • Improved and comparable assessment of mortality and morbidity impacts of air, water, soil and/or noise pollution at regional and/or local level;
  • Improved understanding of the role of behavioural economics, psychology and organizational behaviour to design measures oriented to lower pollution in urban environments;
  • Improved understanding of the correlation between improving environmental quality of urban spaces and human health and wellbeing;
  • Methods for determining the sources of air pollutants at urban level so that local authorities, stakeholders and citizens know the proportion of the pollutant emissions attributable to urban transport, heating etc.
  • Comparative analysis of selected successful pollution reduction/abatement strategies at local level and identify key factors underlying such successes and their replication potential.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met.

For more information, visit EC.