Affordable Housing Cross-sectoral Partnership (SMP-COSME-2023-HOUS-01) 

Full title

"Boosting SMEs’ and stakeholders’ capacities to participate in construction and renovation projects through the Affordable Housing Initiative European Partnership"

Objectives

This call for proposals aims to set up the Affordable Housing Initiative European Partnership (‘the AHI partnership’) to support organisations active in the renovation and construction of social and affordable housing projects.

On the one hand, the AHI partnership will act as a pool of expertise at EU level, providing expertise, good practices and knowledge transfer opportunities to any interested organisation active in the conceptualisation, planning, financing or implementation of a construction or renovation project of social and affordable housing. On the other hand, the AHI partnership will provide tailored support and customised capacity building activities to members of (minimum) 35 selected ‘Local Industrial Partnerships’ (LIPs), joint-cooperation projects using an integrated approach and working towards the implementation of a lighthouse district, hence contributing to the overall ambition of the Affordable Housing Initiative of supporting 100 lighthouse districts in their development, as set up in the Renovation Wave. The AHI partnership will aim to boost replication potential of identified and developed successful practices against a one size-fits-all approach, taking the features of the project in consideration. 

Cooperation between a variety of organisations is required to strive for social and economic regeneration of neighbourhoods in the context of renovation and construction projects of social and affordable housing at district level. Therefore, the AHI partnership will aim to engage multi-stakeholder and public-private partnerships. It will support SMEs active in affordable and social housing (e.g. public, non or limited-profit housing associations and cooperatives, social rental agencies and companies, associations of tenants and residents, social private landlords) and in construction (including energy efficiency renovation, deconstruction, construction waste management) to collaborate with other SMEs (e.g. architects, energy audit providers, energy service companies, urban designers and planners, social services and healthcare providers), local public authorities and bodies (e.g. in delivering construction permits, acting as procuring entities for renovation projects) and other relevant organisations such as  impact investors and business support organizations (e.g. incubators, accelerators, chambers of commerce), technology centers, science parks, research institutes, innovation hubs (e.g. clusters of social and ecological innovation), third places (e.g. fab labs, living labs, community centers), vocational training providers, work-integration social enterprises and cooperatives.

The AHI partnership will also aim to upskill and reskill workforce of relevant parties that are engaged in such projects. For example, to integrate digital, environmental and social innovative solutions for lighthouse projects, and identify required developments (e.g. regulatory, financing, planning, management, technical, social) for social and affordable housing.

Available budget & number of projects

Available budget for this call: the maximum grant amount is €1 million (90% funding rate).

Expected number of projects to be funded: 1 for a duration of 24 months.