The European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) was the first major international research effort dedicated to understanding the biological, ecological, biogeochemical, and societal implications of ocean acidification (OA). OA is caused by the ocean absorbing massive amounts of human-made carbon dioxide, leading to a reduction in pH and carbonate ion concentration.

🎯 Overall Objectives and Research Themes

Launched in May 2008, EPOCA involved over 160 scientists from 32 institutions in 10 European countries. Its overall goal was to fill critical knowledge gaps and predict the future impact of OA on marine life and the Earth system.

The research was structured around four core themes:

Theme 1: Changes in Ocean Chemistry and Biogeography

• Objective: Document past and present spatial and temporal fluctuations in ocean carbonate chemistry and the distribution of marine species.
• Methods: Used paleo-reconstruction (e.g., on deep-sea corals and foraminifera) to assess past variability and continuous sampling at time-series stations (e.g., in the Arctic) for present-day observations.

Theme 2: Biological Responses

• Objective: Quantify the impact of OA on marine organisms and ecosystems, including the potential for acclimation and adaptation.
• Methods: Conducted extensive laboratory and field perturbation experiments (mesocosms and natural $\text{CO}_2$ venting sites) on key organisms across various taxonomic groups (e.g., calcifiers, plankton).

Theme 3: Biogeochemical Impacts and Feedbacks

• Objective: Integrate chemical and biological findings into models to project how OA will alter ocean biogeochemistry over the next 200 years and how these changes will feedback on climate.
• Methods: Used Earth System Models (ESMs), forced global/regional ocean models, and a sediment model to investigate impacts on the carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and iron cycles.

Theme 4: Synthesis, Dissemination, and Outreach

• Objective: Synthesize results from the other themes, assess uncertainties, risks, and critical thresholds (‘tipping points’), and communicate these findings to policymakers and the public.
• Method: Formed the EPOCA Reference User Group (RUG) to ensure scientific accuracy and effective dissemination through policy guides, media, and educational materials.

💡 Major Scientific Results

EPOCA generated over 200 publications and significantly advanced the understanding of ocean acidification.

Key Findings by Theme

Legacy and Outreach

• Data Archiving: Maintained two critical databases: one for EPOCA’s observational/experimental data and another—the EPOCA/EUR-OCEANS data compilation—archiving all published data on biological responses to OA, ensuring long-term accessibility.
• Standards and Best Practices: Led the community-reviewed ‘Guide to best practices in ocean acidification research and data reporting,’ which has been widely distributed to standardize research protocols.
• Policy Impact: Played a significant role in raising global awareness, contributing to major policy activities (e.g., IPCC AR5) and producing multilingual guides for policymakers.
• Educational Content: Produced award-winning outreach materials, including the animation ‘The other CO2 problem and the movie ‘Tipping point’.

The REGREEN project aimed to foster Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) for smart, green, and healthy urban transitions in Europe and China. The project focused on generating knowledge, developing tools, consolidating business models, and promoting awareness of NbS to address urban challenges like public health pressures, inequalities, and climate change vulnerability.

🎯 Overall Objectives and Insights

REGREEN worked along four main objectives:

1. Knowledge Generation: Produce evidence on the benefits of NbS.
2. Tools Development: Create and test tools to guide the design and planning of NbS.
3. Business Models: Consolidate business and investment models for sustainable NbS implementation.
4. Awareness Promotion: Foster awareness in education, governance, and planning.

Key insights for accelerating the transition to equitable, healthy cities include integrating cities with research organizations, involving children, creating enabling funding conditions, breaking silos, and ensuring transparency in sustainable investments.

💡 Main Results and Outputs

The project produced substantial academic and practical outputs, including 34 peer-reviewed articles (with 29 more in progress) and the comprehensive REGREEN Transition Handbook.

Urban Living Labs (ULLs)

Central to the project were Urban Living Labs in both regions:

• Europe: Aarhus (Denmark), Velika Gorica (Croatia), Paris Region (France).
• China: Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo. These labs catalyzed strategic shifts in planning and capacity building, securing mandates for further NbS exploration.

Tools and Methodologies

• Education: Developed interactive tools like walkable floormaps, citizen science projects for biodiversity, and digital educational tools for children from kindergarten to youth.
• Planning & De-paving: Created approaches to reduce urban land take and tools to identify de-paving potential and re-greening strategies.
• Modelling: Developed six improved ecosystem models to calculate benefits related to air/noise pollution, urban heat islands, and water flow, integrated into the City Explorer Toolkit for Aarhus.

Business and Decision Support

REGREEN elaborated an overall approach for sustainable business models, including public-private, consultancy-driven, and citizen-driven models. A Decision Support Tool was also launched to guide stakeholders through the NbS process.

🚀 Impact and Innovation

REGREEN advanced the state-of-the-art by demonstrating the importance of understanding NbS benefits from multiple perspectives and taking a complex systems thinking approach.

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Explorează

• Urban-Rural Resilience: Explored the role of NbS in enhancing resilience by focusing on “peoplesheds” within the larger context of watersheds and airsheds.
• Typology and Evidence: Developed an internally consistent typology of NbS backed by evidence for the ecosystem services they provide.
• Mapping: Created tools for high-resolution land-cover/land-use mapping and scenarios up to 2030.

It aims to create “Healthy corridors as drivers of social housing neighbourhoods” by focusing on the co-creation of social, environmental, and marketable NBS.

To achieve this, the deliverable focuses on three primary objectives:

1. Identifying Actors and Conditions: Identifying the key actors involved in participation and defining the conditions necessary for active, positive, and ethically sound engagement.
2. Stocktaking of Methods: Taking stock of existing participatory methods and tools (including digital technologies) currently used or likely to be used in frontrunner and follower cities. This involves assessing the “participatory culture” of these cities.
3. Strategic Design: Gathering insights to strategically design participatory solutions and digital tools that support NBS uptake. This work directly informs subsequent tasks (Task 3.2) to tailor methods for specific city cultures.

The ultimate goal is to empower citizens and stakeholders to co-create solutions that improve the environmental and social livability of their communities.

The BiodivScen project was an initiative to address the critical gap between insufficient knowledge and the escalating issues of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ESS) degradation. The project aimed to promote and support coordinated international research focused on developing scenarios of biodiversity and ESS to inform policy and raise public awareness, similar to how scenarios are used for climate change.

🎯 Overall Objectives and Global Coordination

BiodivScen networked 27 funding agencies from 24 countries across Europe and other continents. Its main purpose was to strengthen research program coordination and provide policy-makers with the adequate knowledge, tools, and practical solutions needed for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems.

Core Objectives

• Coordinate Research: Agree on shared research priorities related to scenarios of biodiversity and ESS among major European and international research funders.
• Implement Joint Call: Design and implement an ambitious joint call for research proposals on the development of these scenarios.
• Promote Collaboration: Foster trans-national and trans-disciplinary research collaboration to build capacity and overcome fragmentation.
• Encourage Dialogue: Support dialogue and collaboration between academia, research stakeholders, and relevant socio-economic sectors to increase the impact of research on policy and practice.
• Ease Uptake: Ensure the rapid and efficient uptake of funded research results by the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) for its future assessments.
• Data Sharing: Reinforce open access to data and data sharing, and evaluate the added value of long-term collaboration between BiodivERsA and the Belmont Forum.

💡 Main Results and Achievements

The project’s success was largely driven by the implementation of its joint call and the structuring of additional activities to maximize impact.

Joint Call Success

• Funding Scale: Successfully launched and implemented a joint call for research proposals on biodiversity scenarios.
• Results: Despite a large number of applications, 21 projects were selected for funding, totaling €28 million, which exceeded the announced reserved budget by €3 million. This resulted in a satisfactory success rate of approximately 16%.
• Trans-continental Scope: The call achieved massive international collaboration, with a large majority of funded projects being trans-continental and all continents being represented.

Additional Activities (Uptake and Capacity Building)

• Internationalization: Established a Working Group (WG) to map research collaborations between different global regions, enhancing the international vision.
• Data Management: Developed a WG on open access to data, incorporating national practices and Belmont Forum data principles. This led to the production of a guidance document for funded projects and future applicants.
• Science-Policy Interfacing: Finalized an implementation plan for the uptake of research results, outlining objectives, priorities, and organizations to be targeted, including collaborations with socio-economic sectors.
• IPBES Collaboration: Explored and drafted a cooperation framework with the IPBES Technical Support Unit on Scenarios and Models.

🚀 Progress Beyond State-of-the-Art and Expected Impact

BiodivScen pushed the state-of-the-art by aligning global research on ESS, ensuring that the research produced is directly relevant and useful for high-level decision-making.

Global Capacity: The trans-continental success of the call and the mapping assignment on international research collaborations enhance the global capacity for developing and utilizing biodiversity scenarios.

Filling Knowledge Gaps: The 21 funded projects implement the recommendations made by IPBES in its methodological assessment, specifically by developing multiscale and multidriver scenarios and explicitly considering uncertainty.

Enhanced Policy Relevance: The projects demonstrate potential policy/societal relevance and integrate stakeholder engagement from the outset, ensuring the resulting scenarios are appropriate to support decision-making and are expected to feed future IPBES assessments.

Harmonized Voice: By strengthening collaboration within the European Research Area (ERA) and globally (with the Belmont Forum), the program will ultimately result in a more credible and harmonized voice in terms of research on biodiversity scenarios and their use by decision-makers.

The Edible Cities Network (EdiCitNet) project addressed urgent urban societal challenges—such as mass urbanization, social inequity, and environmental change—by promoting the systemic use of urban landscapes for food production. The project’s core focus was raising awareness and facilitating the implementation of Edible City Solutions (ECS), which are initiatives that empower local communities through inclusive, participatory dynamics to foster social cohesion and green economic growth.

🎯 Overall Objectives and Approach

EdiCitNet used a multi-stakeholder-oriented and transdisciplinary approach to formally implement project outcomes and encourage citizen co-creation across 11 global cities, spanning Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.

City Implementation Models

• Living Lab Cities (5): Andernach, Berlin, Oslo, Havana, and Rotterdam demonstrated their unique ECS experiences through closely monitored, co-created Living Labs.
• Masterplanning Cities (7): St. Feliu de Llobregat, Šempeter pri Gorici, Montevideo, Guangzhou, Lomé, Berlin, and Carthage focused on anchoring ECS within their urban planning frameworks using the Transition Pathway Methodology for replication.

Local & Global Structure

• City Teams (CTs): Interdisciplinary local teams served as the “local communities of practice and knowledge,” forming the backbone of the global Edible Cities network.
• EdiCitNet Platform: Established as the project’s open and global knowledge base, functioning as a hub for networking, collaboration, business consultancy, and urban design tools.

💡 Main Results and Key Achievements

The project’s key results focused on practical tools, knowledge consolidation, and community expansion leading up to its end in February 2024:

1. Knowledge and Digital Tools

• EdiCitNet Platform: Consolidated three former websites (Toolbox, Marketplace, Community Management Tool) into a single multifunctional platform.
  • The platform and its database now host nearly 500 profiles of ECS and over 90 urban food initiatives.
  • It offers resources, networking opportunities, and access to consulting services.
• “Making Cities Edible” MOOC: Established as a structured, tailor-made knowledge base of project content. It will be part of a new elective course at the University of Ljubljana.
• Serious Game: Successfully designed and tested for integration into the Transition Pathway Methodology.
• Business Support Tools: Developed the Diamond Model tool, the Growing Jobs in Agriculture Playbook, and the Consulting Guidebook to help urban food initiatives set up successful businesses.

2. Implementation and Replication

• Masterplans: The Transition Pathway Methodology was adapted to seven cities, resulting in seven co-created masterplans for anchoring ECS in urban planning frameworks.
• Business Support: Organized 23 tailored Business Model Workshops and 12 one-on-one consultancies for urban food initiatives in the participating cities.
• Lessons Learned: Conducted extensive interviews ($\approx 219$ total) and surveys with urban food initiatives to gather valuable insights on (Up)scaling ECS.

3. Network and Outreach

• The project network experienced substantial growth, attracting 2,402 members/newsletter recipients in 33 countries.
• Produced over 250 pieces of translated educational and dissemination content.
• Strengthened collaboration with sister projects through joint campaigns and participation in NBS taskforces.

🚀 Progress Beyond State-of-the-Art and Impact

EdiCitNet made significant strides in advancing the urban food movement by formalizing and networking previously isolated initiatives.

• Network-Based Governance: The project successfully initiated a transition towards a network-based governance model, strengthening CTs and actively dismantling silo-thinking as a barrier to ECS implementation.
• Inclusiveness and Social Impact: Demonstrated that inclusive urban regeneration and social impact can be achieved through co-creation and the formation of innovative, transdisciplinary local partnerships.
• Diverse Living Labs: Established five diverse Living Labs that go beyond simple urban landscaping, addressing complex social challenges like densification in disadvantaged neighborhoods, fostering bottom-up stakeholder involvement, and increasing food sovereignty and security.
• Sustainable Legacy: The establishment of the long-term platform and the MOOC ensures that the knowledge base and networking opportunities will prevail beyond the project’s lifetime.

The CLEVER Cities project utilizes Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to address urban challenges and promote social inclusion across cities in Europe, South America, and China. The project’s core innovation lies in the concept of co-creation, where local governments, civil society, universities, and businesses work directly with citizens to design, test, and implement NBS.

🎯 Overall Objectives and Approach

The project sought to position NBS as a means to improve public health, social cohesion, citizen security, and economic opportunities in often deprived urban areas lacking quality green spaces.

Core Objectives

• Increase and improve local knowledge of nature-based solutions.
• Demonstrate that greener cities work better for people and communities.
• Contribute data and information to EU policy-making.
• Promote and enable the global uptake of nature-based solutions in urban planning.

Implementation Strategy

• Front-runner (FR) Cities: Hamburg, London, and Milan established CLEVER Action Labs (CALs)—specific areas where NBS were implemented through intensive co-creation with local citizens (the “experts of their areas”).
• Follower (FE) Cities: Sfantu Gheorghe, Quito, Madrid, Belgrade, Larissa, and Malmö replicated and tailored the NBS solutions to their local needs, guided by roadmaps and governance/business/financial guidance co-created by the project team.
• Knowledge Transfer: The project established learning platforms and training opportunities to share best practices globally, raising the profile of EU leadership in the NBS market.

💡 Main Results and Innovation

The project focused on testing and proving an innovative, participatory methodology for NBS implementation.

1. Co-creation and Governance

• CLEVER Cities Guidance: The project launched comprehensive guidance and promotional materials detailing its co-creation approach.
• Co-design of NBS: FR cities built the basis of innovative NBS, investing significant effort in keeping Urban Innovation Partnerships (UIPs) engaged and active throughout the process.
• Replication Strategies: FE cities successfully established new urban governance schemes and developed robust plans and strategies for NBS replication and mainstreaming.

2. Monitoring and Economic Embedding

• Co-monitoring Activities: Significant effort was placed on involving local stakeholders in co-monitoring activities to customize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the monitoring process to the specific expected outcomes of the CALs.
• Policy and Economic Impact: Strategies were developed to embed the implemented solutions into a broader economic perspective, gathering impact assessment results to directly influence policy-making.

3. Global Outreach and Scaling

• The project successfully scaled out the CLEVER Cities approach globally, using the UrbanByNature (UbN) hubs to accelerate global awareness of the benefits and co-benefits of urban NBS interventions.
• The project’s outcomes were disseminated at more than 100 events (academic, local, and political), maximizing the impact and fostering future uptake of NBS.

🚀 Progress Beyond State-of-the-Art and Impact

CLEVER Cities made substantial progress by testing a novel, “bottom-up” approach to urban regeneration.

• Testing Co-Design: The project went beyond the state-of-the-art by offering an opportunity to test the co-design of NBS with diverse stakeholders and citizen-based urban living labs. This practical, comparative assessment unlocked innovative ways to interact with traditional urban planning policies.
• Focus on Inclusiveness: The central inquiry—whether a co-creation, co-design, and co-management approach would successfully dictate social inclusiveness and positive impacts on citizen health, safety, and economic prosperity—is a key advancement in NBS research.
• Legacy: The project contributes valuable evidence to the field where little research was available at the time of its inception. The commitment by partners to continue monitoring the impacts of the implemented NBS in future years will serve as a vital long-term legacy for policy-makers and practitioners.

The GROW GREEN project aimed to develop and implement Nature-Based Solution (NBS) strategies in cities globally to bring about systemic changes in long-term urban planning, development, and management. The central focus was utilizing NBS, specifically Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS), to enhance climate and water resilience while generating significant co-benefits.

🎯 Approach and Implementation

The project centered around three demonstrator pilot cities (Manchester, UK; Valencia, Spain; and Wroclaw, Poland) and engaged the Chinese city of Wuhan to learn from its expansive ‘Sponge Cities’ program . Three additional replication cities (Brest, Modena, and Zadar) were involved to learn and apply the outcomes.

Pilot Demonstrators

💡 Main Results and Evidence-Based Outcomes

The project used a detailed monitoring and evaluation plan covering climatic, environmental, and social indicators. The evidence gathered demonstrated the high efficacy of the implemented NBS features:

Environmental and Climatic Impact

• Water Management and Flood Risk: Monitoring showed the ability of NBS features to reduce urban runoff with high performance figures ($\approx 99-100\%$).
• Heat Stress: Outcomes confirm that NBS can significantly reduce the occurrence of heat stress through processes like evapotranspiration.
• CO2 Savings: NbS features (especially on buildings) offer immediate benefits on thermal behavior, and carbon sequestration in trees and vegetation plays a significant role.
• Biodiversity: All demonstration areas showed significant biodiversity uplift due to the introduction of diverse plants and the protection of mature trees.
• Water Quality: NbS features have the ability to ameliorate and reduce contaminated runoff.

Social and Governance Impact

• Participatory Planning: The project strongly validated that the development and provision of NBS benefits from a participatory planning approach, which successfully engaged local communities and fostered a sense of ownership and involvement.
• Health and Wellbeing: Demonstrated tangible positive impacts on community health and wellbeing.
• Management & Maintenance: Highlighted the critical need for bespoke maintenance schedules and dedicated SuDS management plans.

🚀 Progress Beyond State-of-the-Art and Legacy

GROW GREEN provided a global platform for sharing best practice and achieved significant governance changes:

• Green City Framework: Produced an easy-to-use, replicable approach called the Green City Framework, which serves as a template for cities starting their journey of green infrastructure strategy development.
• Strategic Influence: The project had a direct and significant influence on partner cities’ strategies. For example, in Wroclaw, all municipal investments must now include NBS (e.g., green tram tracks are standard), and in Manchester, the project directly influenced the design of the first new park in over 100 years.
• Long-Term Monitoring: All pilots will be monitored for the next 5 years (up to 2027), ensuring a robust, longitudinal data set on NBS performance is made publicly available.
• Innovation: The use of participatory planning processes to integrate local residents and stakeholders into the design, ensuring that relevant KPIs were included and engendering community involvement, stands out as a key innovation.

The URBAN GreenUP project aimed to address severe urban environmental issues (like poor air quality, floods, and heatwaves) resulting from urbanization and climate change. It did this by pioneering Renaturing Urban Planning (RUP), an innovative approach that integrates city planning with Nature-Based Solutions (NBS).

🎯 Overall Objectives and Approach

The core objective was to implement NBS through the RUP methodology and establish a replicable framework to achieve large-scale impact and foster a global EU-driven NBS market.

Implementation Strategy

• Front-runner Cities: Liverpool, Valladolid, and Izmir implemented over 100 actions (74 NBS and 28 non-technical interventions).
• NBS Types: Actions ranged from green cycle lanes and street trees (contributing to carbon sinks) to noise barriers and green roofs (improving water management and air quality).
• Replication: The developed RUP methodology was successfully adapted by Follower cities (Mantova, Ludwigsburg, QuyNhon, and Medellin), creating a global network.

💡 Main Results and Achievements

The project focused on the development, deployment, monitoring, and dissemination of the RUP methodology.

1. Renaturing Urban Planning (RUP) Methodology

• Development: The RUP methodology was developed collaboratively by experts, Front-runner, and Follower cities.
• Key Components: The methodology includes procedures for City and area diagnosis, baseline calculation, NBS scenarios generation, City zoning and evaluation, and scaling up guidelines.
• Validation: The RUP methodology was finalized and successfully validated with feedback from the Follower cities.

2. Deployment and Monitoring

• Intensive Transformation: Front-runner cities executed intensive transformations based on their re-naturing Plans.
• Comprehensive Monitoring: A comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy generated an extensive database, accessible via Zenodo and stored for at least 50 years. This yielded a detailed catalog of KPIs and NBS performance metrics.
• Non-technical Interventions: Cities also engaged in non-technical activities, like citizen awareness campaigns, to promote inclusivity and acceptance.

3. Market Development and Exploitation

• Business Models: The project developed methodologies to evaluate social and economic impacts and designed innovative financial mechanisms and business models to foster NBS implementation.
• Key Exploitable Results: In total, the project delivered 58 key exploitable results, including 16 with commercial marketability.

🚀 Progress Beyond State-of-the-Art and Legacy

URBAN GreenUP set a new standard in urban sustainability by moving beyond traditional approaches to NBS.

• Integrated Strategy: Demonstrated the effective, integrated use of NBS (green, blue, and non-technical actions) directly into the Urban Resilience Strategy via RUP.
• Replicability and Scalability: The successful adaptation and validation of the RUP methodology by a global network of Follower cities proves its replicability and scalability, positioning it for widespread international impact.
• Long-Term Impact:
  • Environmental/Public Health: NBS remain in place, providing lasting benefits to environmental quality and public health.
  • Economic: Contribution to the growth of the global EU-driven NBS market through defined business models and expected growth in job creation and economic activity.
  • Social: Enhancement of social inclusion and equity by promoting accessibility and engaging citizens through participatory planning.
• Knowledge Legacy: The project’s experience, including lessons learned from unforeseen events like the COVID-19 challenge, is captured in a comprehensive library and a final handbook for future urban development initiatives.

The UNALAB project (Urban Nature Labs) had the overarching goal of developing a robust evidence base and European framework for innovative, replicable, and locally attuned Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to enhance the climate and water resilience of cities. The project emphasized a socially engaged, citizen-driven paradigm and the use of Urban Living Labs (ULLs) to co-create, implement, and test NBS.

🎯 Core Objectives and Approach

UNaLab sought to reinvent the role of local government by focusing on co-creation, scenario thinking, and collaborative action to achieve multiple social, environmental, and economic co-benefits.

Core Objectives

1. Foster Urban Innovation Ecosystems: Establish ULLs where stakeholders co-create and optimize NBS.
2. Develop Evidence Base: Create a robust evidence base and European framework for replicable NBS.
3. Develop Open Data Platforms: Demonstrate the capability of city-level open data platforms to accelerate NBS co-creation and implementation.
4. Transfer Knowledge: Successfully transfer NBS innovations and support the development of NBS roadmaps in follower cities.

Implementation Strategy

• Demonstration ULLs: Partner cities Eindhoven, Genova, and Tampere engaged in systematic co-creation to implement 17 integrated NBS actions, demonstrating their benefits and viability within a living lab framework.
• Replication Focus: Five partner cities (Başakşehir, Cannes, Castellón, Prague, and Stavanger) and two international cities (Buenos Aires and Hong Kong) developed green, sustainable future visions, with the aim of replication.

💡 Key Results and Innovation

UNaLab made significant contributions to the state-of-the-art by developing a comprehensive suite of frameworks, handbooks, and digital tools tailored for NBS adoption:

1. Fostering Innovation Ecosystems (Objective 1)

• ULL Framework: Developed the ULL framework and an Urban Living Lab Handbook.
• Co-creation Tools: Created an Urban Living Lab Online Toolkit featuring a wide range of co-creation tools and methods.
• Barriers Analysis: Conducted an in-depth analysis of barriers hindering NBS implementation.

2. Developing the Evidence Base (Objective 2)

• Impact Analysis: Created the NBS impact analysis framework and NBS Technical Handbook.
• Economic Tools: Developed an NBS value chain analysis and value model, and detailed NBS business models and financing strategies.
• Monitoring: Established NBS performance and impact monitoring protocols.

3. Open Data Platforms and Digital Tools (Objective 3)

• ICT Architecture: Defined the UNaLab ICT framework architecture.
• Decision Support: Developed the Systemic Decision Support Tool and NBS impact simulator for analyzing trade-offs.
• Online Tools: Created the Online Nature Innovation Arena, City Performance Monitor, and the online Nature Recommender tool.

4. Knowledge Transfer and Replication (Objective 4)

• Replication Framework: The UNaLab Replication Framework online content management system captures all project outputs and learnings.
• Support System: Launched the UNaLab Buddy System and webinar series to facilitate knowledge transfer.
• Guidance Documents: Produced the NBS Implementation Handbook, including lessons learned, and an Urban Living Lab Roadmapping toolkit.

🚀 Impact and Legacy

UNaLab’s systematic approach strongly supports the mainstreaming of NBS by addressing the practical and digital needs of city officials:

• Multi-Project Leadership: UNaLab took a leading role in European NBS Taskforces, leading TF1 on Data Management and co-leading TF2 on Integrated Assessment Frameworks, significantly contributing to wider EU guidance and handbooks on NBS impact evaluation.
• Tangible Outcomes: The 17 co-created NBS actions in the demonstration cities are published as case studies on the Oppla platform, providing real-world examples for replication.
• Widespread Dissemination: Project outcomes were disseminated at 141 events in 27 countries and resulted in 43 peer-reviewed publications, validating the project’s scientific and practical contributions.

🎯 Main Objective and Framework

The principal outcome of the project is the Connecting Nature Framework—a process tool designed to guide cities and organizations toward the large-scale implementation of NBS.

The framework is structured into three phases (Planning, Delivery, Stewardship) and seven essential elements that must be considered throughout the process:

1. Technical solutions
2. Governance
3. Financing and business models
4. Nature-based enterprises
5. Co-production
6. Impact assessment
7. Reflexive monitoring

💡 Key Results and Innovation Impact

CONNECTING Nature has successfully deployed its framework in ten partner cities, resulting in significant achievements in capacity building, innovation, and global outreach.

1. Capacity Building and Assessment

• Connecting Nature Framework Embedding: The framework elements were successfully adapted and embedded in the planning and implementation processes of all partner cities, contributing to their climate action and adaptation plans.
• Impact Assessment Tools: Developed the CO-IMPACT decision-support tool and the Assessment Toolkit to help assess NBS impact across multiple indicators.
• Knowledge Transfer: Established an effective NBS peer-to-peer knowledge transfer process between cities and coordinated three global Connecting Nature Summit Series events with over 2,000 participants.

2. Innovation and Enterprises

The project was highly successful in creating sustainable innovations and spin-off enterprises:

• Nature-Based Enterprise (NBE) Platform: Established the Connecting Nature Enterprise Platform, now the world’s largest community of NBEs, to raise awareness of the economic potential of NBS.
• Spin-off Innovations: Led to 92 new project innovations and the creation of 3 spin-off enterprises to ensure project sustainability:
  • UrbanByNature (2019): A global capacity-building programme.
  • EM|Path (2021): Focuses on co-production and engagement techniques for sustainable community development.
  • Connecting Ecology (2022): Specializes in biodiversity surveys and NBS impact evaluation.
  • Co-Impact (2022): An open-source app for creating NBS project evaluation and monitoring plans.

3. Global and Policy Outreach

• UrbanByNature Programme: Successfully launched global hubs (in Brazil, China, Korea, etc.) in collaboration with CitiesWithNature and ICLEI, sustaining the project’s outcomes globally.
• Policy Contribution: Lead authors contributed to two pivotal EC Expert Publications on NBS impact and the nature positive economy, significantly enriching the global knowledge base.
• Practice Impact: Project outcomes were embedded into the RTPI accreditation of planning courses across the UK and Ireland and are being delivered through Continuous Professional Development (CPD) training for professionals in Ireland, Poland, and Spain.

🚀 Impact and Legacy

The deployment of the Connecting Nature framework has resulted in substantial, measurable impacts on cities and the wider policy landscape:

• Leveraged Funding: Several partner cities secured significant funding for scaling up NBS implementation (e.g., Nicosia secured €8m, Ioannina secured €10m).
• Strategic Alignment: 5 Connecting Nature cities were selected for the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030, confirming the framework’s relevance.
• Global Recognition: The UrbanByNature program is now hosted by CitiesWithNature (a registry with over 215 signatory cities), ensuring the project’s longevity and global reach.