£1.6m funding available for projects to connect food, water and energy services

Innovate UK, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) have £1.6 million to invest in projects looking at sustainable urban services as part of a global collaboration worth €28.5 million.

TheSustainable Urban Global Initiative (SUGI)/Food-Water-Energy Nexus is a competition jointly established by the Belmont Forum and theJoint Programming Initiative Urban Europe.

The aim is to find new understanding of and solutions to the systemic management of food, water and energy in cities. UK organisations will be expected to collaborate with overseas partners on projects proposing integrated solutions across natural and social sciences, arts and humanities, and engineering under a number of themes:

• development of a robust and accessible global sustainability knowledge base
• governance and management of the connections between food, water and energy services
• managing the risks and trade-offs that come out of sustainable urbanisation and the connecting of food, water and energy services

The competition is open to cities, businesses and non-government organisations and the deadline for pre-proposals is 15 March 2017.  Costs for UK elements of a project are expected to be up to €300,000 and the UK component of a project must include a business or industry organisation. UK organisations must also work with at least two partners from other participating countries

Click here for more about the competition