The City Coordinators Group (CCG) was officially launched on October 7th 2021 as an online gathering held between 15.00 to 16.30 PM and within the framework of the Ceremony of the Covenant of Mayors.The meeting was meant to present the purpose and the Group’s mission and general roadmap.
The session kickstarted with a short presentation of SCALE and an introduction made by Georg Houben, Smart City Expert and Policy Officer at DG Energy. It was then followed by the presentation of the CCG Roadmap. The Group will target Lighthouse and Fellow cities from the Horizon 2020 Lighthouse Project Cluster while also keeping an open space for Observer cities from similar programmes. The meeting continued with an interactive conversation and presentation of results and plans to upscale SCC Project Cluster solutions in the cities of Eindhoven (Triangulum, Mr. Henk Kok), Milan (Sharing Cities, Mr. Roberto Nocerino) and Valencia (MAtchUp, Mr. Ernesto Faubel). Together, 43 participants attended the session, mainly representatives from cities. The session can be seen on the SCALE YouTube account. To watch the session, click on this link.
The CCG will act as a catalyzer of information and useful opportunities for cities serving as a bridge for other opportunities including the SCALE Grant, the Call for Experts, SCALE Roadshow, the Smart City Marketplace, the Covenant of Mayors, and as a link with CINEA and the EC. Meanwhile, the group will organize three in-person/online sessions per year aimed at knowledge sharing and networking; partnership building for new projects aimed at replication, all the while taking the advantage of the joint large-scale size of the group to develop recommendation documents to voice cities’ needs to the EC. At the moment, the CCG has received 52 responses and expressions of interest to join the group.
The next session will be held on November 19th from 10.00-12.00 as an online joint session of the CCG together with CIVIESCO and AIT that will be aimed at assessing the needs of cities and use the results to draft the Call for Experts. SCALE will send out invitations to participants by the end of October 2021.