To address the fragmented value chain and the segmentation of issues are among the major challenges to improve the built environment sector, which so far faces uncoordinated innovation and reduced capacity to deliver on a common Research and Innovation (R&I) roadmap. For this reason, the European Commission and built environment stakeholders, among which EBC, are working together to establish a Research & Innovation partnership on a ‘Sustainable Built Environment’, to be implemented under the upcoming Horizon Europe programme.
The envisaged Co-programmed Partnership will build a supportive and encompassing framework to deliver on R&I for built environment sustainability and citizens’ better living. These cannot be achieved solely by specialised, stand-alone calls for proposals, but require an integrated approach, driven by innovation and pulled by demand for a clean, safer, affordable, smarter, decarbonised and sustainable built environment. The Co-programmed Partnership will rely on previous initiatives to address a broader R&I scope, also involving a larger stakeholder community.
On 11 December, the European Commission organised a joint workshop with key stakeholders to discuss about the three main activities that the Partnership should envisage:
EBC will keep working on the setting up of this Public-Private Partnership in order to ensure that the interests of construction SMEs and craftsmen are duly taken into consideration by future research programmes, especially in the field of market uptake of innovative solutions.
 | The European Commission has recently launched a survey to consult the wider stakeholders’ community about the structure and the targeted fields of intervention of the future partnership: click here to access the survey |
