FinEst Centre’s Story: FinEst Centre for Smart Cities (Teaming Project)

FinEst Twins is an EU Teaming project that is building the first global cross-border smart city centre of excellence – FinEst Centre for Smart Cities. The project is funded by the European Union´s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under the grant agreement No. 856602, by the European Regional Development Fund, and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. The objectives for this webinar are to • Increase the quality of proposals submitted to the 2025 Teaming call by disseminating best-practices and lessons-learned from elaborating the FinEst Twins proposal and building the FinEst Centre for Smart Cities; • Increase awareness of and support for the FinEst Twins project specifically, and the Widening Programme more generally; • Catalyze new collaborations; • Support the formation of an EH Community. The primary target audiences are • Applicants to the 2025 Teaming call; • Other Widening projects and their external stakeholders; • Stakeholders with interests in Smart Cities specifically and the Green Transition more generally; • Stakeholders for the EU Widening Program, including those with interests / activities in writing EU proposals and executing EU projects. The webinar will begin with the proposal background that led to the FinEst Twins project’s concept and consortium, cover the development of the proposal and execution of the project to date, and conclude with the post-project ambitions and vision. The webinar will include key characteristics of the proposal and project including lessons-learned. The webinar is intended to consist of a ~30 min. presentation and ~20 min. of Q&A and open discussion.