As project coordinator, Rubén García from Fundación CARTIF, represented R2CITIES at the European Commission’s 4th EeB PPP impact workshop in Brussels on 1-2 April. Margherita Scotto from R2CITIES partner D’Appolonia was also present.
This workshop was a large event and brought together members from some 111 EeB projects, EC representatives and E2BA over the two days. The objective was to assess the impact of PPP and to explore ways to enhance the reach of projects through clustering and other types of cross-project collaboration. This leverage and need for market uptake was highlighted as essential given that the building sector is highly fragmented with 95% of businesses being SMEs, and that buildings represent some 40% of total energy use in the EU.
Three parallel workshop sessions were held and grouped projects according to their specific fields: “Nanotechnologies and advanced materials in EeB”, “ICT for energy-efficient buildings” and “Integration and demonstration of technologies”. R2CITIES was part of the last group in sub-topic “High performance energy-efficient districts” along with its sister projects EU-GUGLE and ZenN, but also six other projects working in this field. All of these projects were showcased in a joint presentation delivered by Francesco Rodriguez from Tecnalia. During the presentation, Francesco highlighted the collaboration among the three sister projects under the MySmartCityDistrict label as a good example for creating synergies.
The workshop constituted another opportunity for projects addressing similar challenges to collaborate, exchange best practice and seek further leverage for maximising their outcomes.
The plenary session addressed Horizon 2020, examined viewpoints from industry and highlighted some EeB success stories rated as projects with high-level impact and outcome. Rapporteurs from the two other sessions confirmed the interest in sharing data and exchanges about modelling. Both would provide valuable input for standardization.
Contact: R2CITIES Communication Secretariat