Specifically, UIC Barcelona is leading the first phase of the project, which consists of identifying the barriers and needs for improvements in design and governance to move toward sustainable urban transformation. Lorenzo Chelleri, UIC Barcelona School of Architecture researcher and lecturer, is leading the project.

The project has a total budget of 12 million euros distributed over the next three years, and works with ten cities (Belfast, Budapest, Granollers, Istanbul, Lisbon, Milan, Münster, Rotterdam, Thessaloniki and Zagreb).

To speed up the implementation of solutions in these 10 pilot cities, and scale it to the 127 cities that have a carbon neutrality mission, the project is leaving behind the obsolete organisation scheme in Working Package and is organising under the “5UP” methodological framework (UP-dating, UP-skilling, UP-grading, UP-scaling and UP-taking). UIC Barcelona is leading phase one of the five phases, UP-dating , which consists of analysing the barriers and needs of cities facing the challenges of transformation and will also focus on setting up a virtual training platform.

The first project meeting for “UP2030: Urban planning and design ready for 2030” took place in February in Thessaloniki, Greece. The 5UP process leaders met in Brussels to make a cluster group, from which they will work synergistically to support the European Commission’s Carbon Neutrality mission. In the next few months, results will be in from the ten international workshops that are currently being prepared in the pilot cities, to examine the barriers and move forward in the planning and governance for carbon neutral cities.