Open Innovation Call targeting air quality and urban heat island effect launched in Copenhagen

The City of Copenhagen’s department Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions within the Technical and Environmental Administration is partnering with Access Cities alliance to find solutions for the City’s most present and acute environmental issues.

In partnership with Access Cities, Copenhagen yesterday launched the Copenhagen Air Quality and Urban Heat Open Innovation Call for new and innovative ideas, technologies and approaches to help reduce the negative impacts of urban air pollution and the urban heat island effect.

Parallel call with New York City

Underlining that the Access Cities programme is about finding and sharing solutions to similar challenges that cities face, this competition is designed as a parallel Open Innovation Call between New York City and Copenhagen. The New York call was launched in June 2019 and is now evaluating the submitted proposals.

“Copenhagen has benefited a lot from collaborating with other progressive cities, sharing our solutions and concerns as we are faced with similar challenges. Although we are a relatively green city, air quality is also a huge challenge for us, and if we look at future temperature rise predictions caused by climate change, we must start future proofing our city now against increasing urban heat island impacts”, said Lykke Leonardsen, Program Director, Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions, City of Copenhagen.

“The aim of joint Open Innovation Calls is to pool knowledge, experiences and innovation in a way that similar challenges are solved through collaboration, instead of wasting time and resources on individual solutions, as climate challenges in big cities often are of comparable nature” said Jakob Stolt, Senior Project Manager at EIT Climate-KIC, developing and executing the Open Innovation Call.

All invited to submit solutions

True to the nature of an Open Innovation Call, companies, organisations, consortia, citizen groups and individuals can apply to the Copenhagen call. All challenge participants get the opportunity to present their solution through their submissions to a professional evaluation panel from Copenhagen municipal agencies, relevant companies that are working with implementation of solutions and other sustainability leaders within the green industries.

A group of (up to) five finalists selected from the Open Innovation Call will be asked to present their solution in person to a panel of selected representatives from some of the major private stakeholders and companies in urban development in the City of Copenhagen. Additionally, the finalists will also present their solutions to city representatives on Open Innovation Day on 11 October 2019 that will take place under the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen in October 2019. The evaluation panel will provide feedback on the pitches and offer recommendations on how the product, service or vision could best be improved, validated or implemented in Copenhagen.

Important dates:

About the City of Copenhagen’s Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions Programme

Copenhagen’s Programme for Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions was established in 2016, following a great international interest in the solutions on climate and climate adaptation that the city was working on. It is a programme where bilateral exchange of knowledge is in focus. By partnering with cities facing similar challenges as Copenhagen, the aim is to share knowledge that will accelerate processes in the participating cities. So far, Copenhagen is working with New York, Boston/Cambridge, Washington DC, Houston and Beijing.

About Access Cities

Access Cities is an international, public-private programme, which aims to strengthen sustainable urban development in five progressive cities – New York, Singapore, Munich and the Danish cities of Copenhagen and Aarhus. The project connects stakeholders working with sustainable urban development in the pursuit of finding game-changing solutions to common issues confronting cities.

Access Cities is funded by the Danish Industry Foundation and co-financed by State of Green (programme lead), the Confederation of Danish Industry, Quercus Group, EIT Climate-KIC, the City of Copenhagen and the City of Aarhus. Learn more at accesscities.org.

For more information and application assistance, please contact EIT Climate-KIC.