DUT Call 2025

Projects funded via this call will become part of the DUT Partnership R&I portfolio. Participants of projects funded via this call are expected to actively participate in the programme activities and to consider this in the planning of their project proposal by including budget to participate in the programme activities.

To foster exchange between the projects, dissemination and communication to stakeholders, decision makers and the general public, and to refine and identify challenges and objectives for future calls, the DUT Partnership has established a multi-layered scheme of mandatory activities, opportunities and support for projects. Time and budget (including travel expenses) of a maximum of EUR 30 000 should be reserved by the consortium as a whole for these programme activities.

See section 5.2 and 5.3 in the call text for further details.

The projects selected within this call will be funded directly by national/regional funding agencies from the following countries:

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, and Türkiye.

The list of involved countries/funding agencies will not be final until 1 September, when the call officially launches. More agencies may be added and some agencies may still opt out.

Cooperation with Xjenza Malta

This year, the DUT Partnership is cooperating with the Funding Agency Xjenza Malta – as part of their A2P scheme, Malta-based researchers can join the DUT Call as cooperation partners and be reimbursed up to €300,000 for their participation in a successfully funded DUT project, provided that also the national application is successful. More information can be found here.

The total available budget for this call is approximately € XXX  EUR millions of budget committed by the participating funding agencies. Additionally, the European Commission will support this call through Horizon Europe (co-funded action DUT – Grant Agreement number 101069506) with a co-fund of up to 30% of the eligible funding agency budget for the 2024 and 2025 DUT Partnership calls.

Each national/regional funding agency will provide funds directly to their eligible beneficiaries in accordance with the agencies’ rules and regulations.

Tables 1 and 2, provided in Annex A, give an overview of the national and regional budgets dedicated to this call by each funding agency and of their positioning on which topics they can fund and who they can fund.
 

This call includes both a set of transnational requirements common for all applicants as well as national/regional requirements, which apply to applicants that claim funds from a specific funding agency. See Annex A of the call text for further information.

All funded partners in this call will be funded by their national/regional funding agencies, in accordance with their respective national/regional eligibility criteria. Please note that a specific national/regional agency may not be able to fund all types of organisations and/or TPs and/or research activities. Applicants must pay careful attention to the relevant national/regional funding rules indicated in Annex A and contact the relevant national/regional contact person with any queries to avoid any issues related to national/regional eligibility.

Annex A of the call text also includes a table that indicates which funding agency supports proposals under which Transition Pathway and topic.

The DUT Partnership accelerates urban transitions through three thematic areas, known as Transition Pathways (TPs): the 15-minute City, Circular Urban Economies and Positive Energy Districts. For each TP, three topics are defined as focus areas for this call. Read more about the call topics further up on the page and in section 2.3 in the call text.

Since urban transition issues are intrinsically interconnected, a proposal may address several topics, from one or more TP. Whilst, crosscutting projects, which combine topics from more than one TP, are encouraged, each project must choose one TP topic that is closest to their subject as a guide. The proposal will be evaluated on the criteria of its main TP. Crosscutting characteristics will be considered in the assessment.

This call is open to a wide range of scientific disciplines, such as strategic urban research, applied urban research, urban innovation.

The complexity of urban sustainability usually requires interdisciplinary approaches to analyse challenges and find solutions. Projects should mobilise the necessary disciplines required to address all aspects of the issues they wish to tackle.

To help ensure a balanced portfolio of funded projects covering the R&I landscape, applicants are asked to identify and indicate which of the following approaches is the best fit for their project, depending on the main purpose of their proposal:

• a more “research-oriented approach” (ROA) to support projects aimed at producing knowledge, analysing data, better understanding and modelling phenomena, and developing expertise and tools that will be useful to stakeholders, practitioners and policymakers. This R&I orientation welcomes proposals mainly focused on strategic and/or applied research;
• a more “innovation-oriented approach” (IOA) to support projects aimed at developing or improving practical, operational solutions – technological and organisational – for companies, local communities and authorities in charge of urban transport and urban planning, as well as management and testing of such solutions. This R&I orientation welcomes proposals mainly focused on applied research and innovation.

The combination of different research types within one project (with potential differentiation at work package level) is possible, as long as the involved funding agencies’ eligibility rules are fulfilled.

A project can be a mix of ROA and IOA, but you will have to choose one main approach (mandatory). Partners can have different roles within a project (either focus on ROA or IOA) but it need to be specified within the pre-proposal.

Different funding agencies have the possibility to fund different parts of the R&I landscape. Table 1 in Annex A indicates the research types that will be funded by each funding agency.

See further details in call text section 2.2.

• Applicants are defined as organisations/institutions/companies (i.e. legal entities) that apply for funding. Applicants can be but are not limited to:
  • research organisations (higher education institutions including universities, university colleges; research institutes or other entities with research undertakings),
  • companies and commercial organisations,
  • urban government authorities (such as local and regional government institutions, municipalities and municipal organisations, city authorities, urban public administrations, infrastructure and service providers),
  • consumers and civil society representatives (e.g. local and community organisations, non-governmental organisations, not-for-profit organisations, advocacy and activist groups, citizens’ representatives, neighbourhood initiatives, social innovators, social entrepreneurs, etc.).
  • From the culture and creative sectors (e.g. artists and designers). 

Apart from this transnational definition, national funding rules may restrict the eligibility of certain groups. Therefore, it is important to check the specific rules in your country/region and the respective funding agency. Please refer to Annex A of the call text for further details.

• The Main Applicant is the entity responsible for coordinating and managing the project (i.e. project coordinator). It will be the contact point with the DUT Call Secretariat on behalf of the whole consortium and is responsible for the administrative management of the complete project. The Main Applicant is responsible for overseeing the project activities and ensuring that the work programme is on track.
• Co-applicants are applicants other than the Main Applicant, eligible for funding from a Funding Agency. There may be more than one Co-applicant from any participating country. In some cases where there is more than one Co-applicant from one country, the responsible funding agency may require one of them to be identified as the National Contact Point (NCP); this is done by the Main Applicant, by nominating a partner as such.
• Cooperation Partners are partners that are ineligible for funding from funding agencies (e.g. partners from countries not participating in this call or ineligible for funding by any of the funding agencies, or are eligible but want to participate without receiving funding), but may be included in a project as Cooperation Partners if a) they finance their activity from other sources and (b) the consortium in general fulfils the requirements on the number of eligible applicants from participating countries. A clear description/indication of the role and form of engagement of these Cooperation Partners should be included in the proposal. A written commitment (Letter of Intent) from Cooperation Partners, participating with their own funding or with an in-kind contribution should be submitted with the full proposal. It should be noted that Cooperation Partners do not count toward the minimum of three eligible applicants from at least three participating countries outlined in the transnational eligibility rule 1 below.
• The Principal Investigator (PI) is defined as the person who is the lead investigator for an applicant.

On the DUT matchmaking platform you can find project partners and build a consortium for your DUT Call 2025 proposal. On the platform you can post your project idea and explore ideas posted by others. The platform offers opportunities for networking and information events. 

In the first stage, consortia are invited to submit pre-proposals. The first stage opens on 1 September and closes on 17 November 2025 (13:00 CET).

A pre-proposal includes a description of the partners, concise project description not exceeding the page limits indicated in the template (exceeding this limit will render the pre-proposal ineligible for funding), and budget indications with limited details fulfilling national/regional requirements.

An outline of the envisioned work programme, the results expected within the duration of the proposal and the main milestones should be described under section 6 in the pre-proposal. As the length of this section is limited in the template, you do not need to go in depth. Later on, in the full proposal, there will be no limit to develop the work plan. 

The pre-proposal template can be downloaded from the document section on the call page.

Stage 2 opens for full proposal submission in February 2026 and closes on 23 April 2026 13:00 (CEST). Only pre-proposals invited to submit a full proposal are eligible in stage 2.

Once the evaluation and selection of proposals to be invited to stage 2 are done, all main applicants will have the opportunity to check on the submission platform the Summary report made by the experts. You will receive feedback on which aspects to improve, and where the strengths and weaknesses of your proposal lie. 

This feedback will be given to proposals that were invited to stage 2 as well as rejected proposals (so that you may consider it for a reapplication next year).

The transnational proposal of a proposal needs to be submitted on the UDiManager platform by the principal investigator (PI) of the main applicant.

The submission platform does now allow several individuals to work on a proposal. The UDiManager account is created with an associated email address. If its desired to change the person working on a pre- or full proposal you can change the account details from that account’s settings.

The pre-proposal template can be downloaded from the document section on the call page.

Some funding agencies may require submission of a proposal on national/regional level, meaning that the other project partners need to apply at national level. See the respective national/regional requirements for more information (Annex A).

Section 3.3 in the call text presents the eligibility rules and the recommendations for preparing and submitting a pre-proposal/full proposal. It also presents what is not allowed and what may be exceptionally allowed in terms of modifications between the pre-proposal and the full proposal stage. 

Pre-proposals and full proposals will be assessed by an expert panel according to specific evaluation criteria outlined in section 4.5 in the call text.

Read more about the assessment and selection procedure in section 4 of the call text.

The project duration may not exceed 36 months.

A consortium must be transnational and include at least three funded partners from three countries in total. Two of those countries must be participating EU member states or associated partners. The third country can be any country participating in the DUT Partnership, even if they are not a member state or associated partner.

Partners from countries outside the DUT Partnership can join project as cooperation partners (partners that do not directly receive funding). You may add cooperation partners at any time during the pre- or full proposal stage.

Consortia are expected to be balanced between countries, both in terms of number of partners and distribution of budget and no individual Applicant or Cooperation Partner may represent more than 50% of the workload calculated in terms of person-months.

Consortia may include partners active across several positions within the research and development system (i.e., innovation, applied research, strategic/fundamental research) and across disciplines (natural sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities, engineering, etc.).

Consortia must include at least one urban government authority (city, municipality or entity providing key urban services, so long as this entity is owned by a local government (confirmation of this by the local government may be requested by the Call Secretariat)) either as a Main Applicant, Co-applicant, or Cooperation Partner depending on the national/regional eligibility criteria.

Moreover, consortia should include preferably at least one representative from companies and commercial organisations, consumers or civil society.

Typically, small to medium sized consortia (involving funding requests to 3-5 Funding Agencies on average per proposal), are expected. However, there is no upper limit, and consortia may involve as many partners as necessary for a convincing proposal, ensuring that all participants have a justified role. Each partner within the consortium should clearly add value to the objectives of the proposed project. Depending on the nature of the project, each partner in the consortium must demonstrate how they will exploit the expected results.

It is possible that invited consortia will be explicitly allowed by the DUT Call Secretariat to integrate, in their full proposal, additional partners requesting funds from specific funding agencies, if these funding agencies are underrepresented in the proposals invited to the second stage. 

This addition of applicants shall be done in a way that is compatible with all the national eligibility conditions already indicated in the call text and the internal regulations of the respective funding agencies. 

This inclusion option between the pre-proposal stage and the full-proposal stage shall be conducted in close cooperation with the respective funding agencies with the aim of allowing as many countries as possible to be involved in the funding of the transnational projects.

The additional Co-applicants may not effect a significant change to the proposal’s original aims, impact and main tasks, but should enhance the original focus.

This possibility does not invalidate the consistency requirements between pre-proposal and full proposal stage outlined at the end of section 3.3.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is defined as the person who is the lead investigator for an Applicant.

A Principal Investigator (PI) must only participate in a maximum of two proposals, and only once as the PI of a Main Applicant. If the DUT Call Secretariat, in charge of checking transnational eligibility, identifies the same person as PI in more than two pre-proposals, or as PI of the Main Applicant of more than one pre-proposal, all pre-proposals/full proposals in which they are a PI, will be declared ineligible.

If you want to participate in a call for proposals or in a call for tenders with eSubmission, your organisation needs to be registered and have a 9-digit Participant Identification Code (PIC). Please quote your PIC in all correspondence with the Commission.

All organisations can create a pic on EU Funding & Tenders Portal on the European Commission website:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/how-to-participate/participant-register

Please check first whether your organisation has already been registered. The PIC of your organisation will be the same unless your organisation has legally changed.

Since urban transition issues are intrinsically interconnected, a proposal may address several topics, from one or more Transition Pathway (TP). Whilst, crosscutting projects, which combine topics from more than one TP, are encouraged, each project must choose one TP topic that is closest to their subject as a guide. The proposal will be evaluated on the criteria of its main TP. Crosscutting characteristics will be considered in the assessment.

ROA supports proposals aimed at producing knowledge, analysing data, better understanding and modelling phenomena, and developing expertise and tools that will be useful to stakeholders, practitioners and policymakers. It calls for proposals mainly focused on strategic and/or applied research. IOA supports proposals aimed at developing or improving practical operational solutions – technological and organisational – for companies, local communities and authorities in charge of urban transport and urban planning as well as management and testing of such solutions. It calls for proposals mainly focused on applied research and innovation.

If public authorities in your country cannot receive national funding, you may involve urban public authorities from another country where funding is available. If this is not possible, urban public authorities can still join as cooperation partners. In this case, they contribute to the project through their expertise, networks, and practical insights, without directly receiving funding.

This depends on the eligibility rules of the respective funding agency. Please check Annex A of the call text or contact the funding agency directly.

This depends mainly on your proposal(s). Generally speaking, the proposal should have a clear benefit from the transnational implementation, so if you have only one physical site it still needs to be clear why the proposal is better suited for a transnational approach than simply being submitted to a purely national call.

If having just one physical site makes sense, then this should be fine (unless the national/regional rules of your funding agency demand you have more than one). If having more sites makes your proposal stronger, then this would of course be a good idea.

Please regard the national/regional information and eligibility criteria in Annex A of the call text and consult your national/regional funding agency for further details. 

This depends on your responsible funding agency. Please check Annex A of the call text for details.

The maximum funding for each proposal partner depends on the funding rules of the respective national or regional funding agency. Therefore, the total funding rate at proposal level can be higher than at partner level. 

Most proposal partners (those from eligible countries) will also receive co-funding by the European Commission.

The total co-fund will amount to up to 30% of the eligible funding agency budget for the call.