EIT Urban Mobility, Knowledge, Innovation and Matchmaking

Year: 2019–2021  |  Client: EIT Urban Mobility (European Institute of Innovation & Technology)  |  Country: Europe

Cities Forum has been an active partner of EIT Urban Mobility, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's Knowledge and Innovation Community dedicated to sustainable urban mobility. The relationship spanned a portfolio of activities supporting EIT Urban Mobility's mission of accelerating the shift towards a sustainable model of urban mobility in European cities, connecting the worlds of cities, industry, research and education that too often operate in isolation.

Our approach

Within this framework Cities Forum contributed to annual calls for proposals, supported the identification and onboarding of partner cities and SMEs, and designed matchmaking events bringing demand, municipalities and public-transport operators, together with supply in the form of startups, SMEs and research centres. Through the Academy strand the firm delivered expert-led executive-education modules, while in the research and innovation strand it contributed to competence-hub projects on the future of urban-mobility management and to impact studies assessing the adoption of innovative solutions such as light electric vehicles, shared-mobility services and multimodal integration.

What we delivered

Deliverables ranged from project proposals for consortia and matchmaking agendas and outcome reports, to capacity-building content for the EIT Academy and dissemination materials for community events. Across these activities Cities Forum acted as a connector and facilitator, helping partners find one another, translating innovation into practical municipal application, and capturing lessons that could be shared across the community.

Impact

The collaboration enabled Cities Forum to cultivate long-standing relationships with leading European cities, mobility operators and research institutions, and to consolidate its position within Europe's innovation networks. Just as importantly, it created a two-way flow of knowledge: European best practice fed directly into Cities Forum's international consulting portfolio across Latin America, Africa and Asia-Pacific, while lessons from those emerging-market projects enriched the firm's contributions in Europe. Being embedded in EIT Urban Mobility kept Cities Forum at the leading edge of European mobility innovation and reinforced its credibility as a partner able to move ideas from pilot to practice, and from one continent to another, in service of more sustainable cities.