Today I had a quick look at the New European Bauhaus. The New European Bauhaus is a flagship of the European Commission and part of the Green Deal. It’s aim is to foster beautiful, sustainable and inclusive spaces and experiences.
I see two take-aways for The Reef:
1. Usefulness for The Reef
I don’t see a lot of potential, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.
If someone has the energy, we could apply to become a Partner. If our candidacy would be approved, our logo will feature on the website and our events may get a push on social media.
If someone has the energy, next time there is an ERDF call to which the Brussels communes could apply, we could dissiminate the information. If we would happen to know a politician, it may be helpful to encourage them to apply. Winning applicants get support in the form of consultancy from experts. A long shot though (IMHO) and unlikely something that will help The Reef.
Maybe at some time (later in the process) we want to flag our existence to the Belgian contact point representatives?
2. Festival (9-12/06/2022)
The festival consists of a Fair, a Fest (cultural activities) and a Forum (panel debates).
The Fair seems a bit abstract at times, but it may include a couple of projects that are thought-provoking?
I registered (in my own name), which should give access to advanced forum features starting from 6 June.
This seems to be a case of Who Does The Work Calls The Shots (WDTCTS). It would not be a bad thing to do this, but neither is it anywhere near the core of what we are trying to do. So, to pursue only if someone falls in love with the idea and wants to do it.
Calls supporting the concrete transformation of the built environment and associated lifestyles at local level (more related to us probably)
Many calls seem closed already.
To be kept under radar if anything new pops up.
I had a quick look on them but please feel free to scan them again (if you haven’t already).
I am not an expert in the practicalities of EU calls but definitely worth keeping an eye on it.
Thanks a lot for the input. I looked into these funding options when writing the original post above, and I didn’t find much that could be of interest at this moment. But let’s keep on checking, maybe one day there will be more useful calls.
The good news is that our application to become a “Partner” has been accepted. The email can be found in our mailbox and I also posted a copy (together with our application) in the folder External Relations > New European Bauhaus.
If you would be interested to follow up on this (they mention bi-monthly working sessions), please feel very welcome. The first onboarding meeting will take place on 20 June in the morning.
IMHO there is nothing for us in there. There are only two calls still open:
The European Urban Initiative targets local authorities. A municipality or the Brussels region could apply, but not a private cohousing.
One Horizon Europe call on resilient, green etc. cultural heritage (buildings, though the word “building” is not in the title). Bad fit: we are looking at residential buildings, and hopefully newly built. They clearly have in mind something like hi-tech solutions for improving the environmental performance of, say, the Palais de Justice.
On the other hand, there might be a good fit between the cohousing movement and some Horizon calls, for example this one on Demand response in energy-efficient residential buildings. The Reef can not be a partner of research projects, because it is too time consuming and would imply mission drift from our objective of building a cohousing. But we could allow ourselves to be studied in a non-exploitative way, making sure that there are some benefits for us from that.
Edgeryders does do Horizon-funded research; I am its research director; and cohousing is a promising avenue for greening city life – and, as a researcher, I find it fascinating. So, we could potentially dip our toe in the water, with Edgeryders doing all the work of writing proposals, admin etc.
Then, as you say, @matteomeschiari, maybe some call will come out that we can tackle more directly, who knows.
Yup! That’s The Reef on the website of the New European Bauhaus, listed as an “Official Partner”!
The snippet text is a bit unfortunate, but oh well. If I remember well it’s taken from the question “how big is your community” (or something like that).
Also: I created a task in the to do list to create a more suitable logo, but for the moment I think we’re fine.
