Audrie van Veen

EIP-SCC Marketplace Matchmaking Event: Connecting Urban Projects Promoters and Financiers

The Smart City Expo World Congress will host the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) Marketplace Matchmaking event on 14th November 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. The EIP-SCC Marketplace Matchmaking is focused on engaging urban project promoters with financiers through one-to-one meetings in order to reach financial agreements and the concrete development of smart city projects – energy, mobility and ICT.

Why participate?
1. Find new international financiers
2. Gain a better understanding of how to improve your project’s business model
3. Understand what’s new in the financial sector
4. Define a tailored plan towards project financing, directly with important investors
5. Expand your network and form long-term business relationships

If you need further information, do not hesitate to contact the organisation at matchmaking@eu-smartcities.eu

Last month, 32 municipalities, 2 provinces and the Vervoerregio (the regional transport authority) in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area committed to work towards making 50% of their procurement activities fully circular in 2025.
This ambition will be fulfilled with an action plan, assembled by the regional coordinator of resource streams.

The commitment is a valuable step in achieving the region's circular economy goals. In the EU, public procurement spending is around 14% of the EU GDP, so converting a considerable part of this spending to investments in the circular economy will accelerate the transition towards a circular region.

The City of Haarlem is coordinator on the EU Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement. The Partnership now presents its draft Action Plan with 7 proposed actions to improve procurement by European cities.
These are the 7 actions:

- Guidance on building city strategic procurement and how to manage strategic procurement (Action 2.1.1)
- Measuring spend and wider impact in European Cities (Action 2.1.2)
- Recommendation(s) for future EU funding for joint cross-border procurement, procurement of innovation, strategic procurement in particular social procurement and circular procurement (Action 2.1.3)
- Innovation procurement broker (Action 2.2.1)
- Legal handbook innovative public procurement (Action 2.3.1)
- Develop a flexible and customisable concept for Local Competence Centres for innovative and sustainable procurement (Action 2.3.2)
- Competence building in circular procurement (Action 2.3.3)

Via the link you'll find a short description of the ideas developed by the partnership, after which you will find the button to give your feedback. You can give feedback on one or more actions.

Read this interview with Carin Roest, policy developer City of Haarlem *in Dutch) about how sharing innovations inspired them and developed new international relations.

The next call for projects will be launched on 15/05/2018 at 13:00 (Central European Time).

It is open to:

- Municipalities
- Entity acting on behalf of municipalities
Via the link below you can see the list of eligible entities in your country.

The WiFi4EU voucher will cover the equipment and installation costs of Wi-Fi hotspots. Beneficiaries commit to pay for the connectivity (internet subscription) and maintenance of the equipment to offer free and high-quality Wi-Fi connectivity for at least 3 years.

What can you expect?
The Wifi4EU voucher provides a fixed amount of funding of EUR 15.000 per municipality. The municipalities that receive a voucher will select the 'centres of public life' where the WiFi4EU hotspots (wireless access points) will be installed and may use the WiFi4EU voucher to partially fund a project of higher value.

The voucher may serve to purchase new equipment or upgrade old material and replace it with most recent and best available equipment on the market.

The beneficiaries will be selected on a first-come, first-serve basis, while ensuring that all Member States can benefit from a minimum amount of vouchers (a minimum amount of 15 vouchers per country will be awarded under the first call.

Which European Energy Policy for which ambitions?

2018 will see new decisive steps taken towards a European clean economy:

• Want to know more about the crucial negotiations shaping the future EU Energy Policy?
• Want to debate the ambition the EU needs and wants to achieve for the coming decade in renewables, energy efficiency, storage and market design?
• Want to discuss the contribution of new technologies to succeed in a smart economic and social energy transition?
• Want to understand how both the EU R&I programmes and the post-2020 Multi-annual Financial Framework could support this?

Confirmed Speakers:
Miguel Arias Cañete (European Commissioner for Climate Action & Energy)
Maroš Šefčovič (Vice-President for the Energy Union, European Commission)
Dominique Ristori (Director-General, DG ENER, European Commission)
Karmenu Vella (European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs & Fisheries)