Updated on 30 September 2026
SOCIAL-READY CITIES – Social Readiness for Inclusive Smart-City Innovation
EU Consultant – EU Projects, Funding & International Partnerships at European Institute for Local Development
Athens, Greece
About
Call: HORIZON-NEB-2027-01 – Innovative models for neighbourhoods that integrate beauty, inclusiveness and sustainability
Topic: HORIZON-NEB-2027-01-PARTICIPATION-01
Many smart-city solutions reach high technological maturity but still face limited citizen adoption, low trust, digital exclusion or insufficient accessibility.
SOCIAL-READY CITIES proposes a transferable Social Readiness & Adoption Framework for smart-city technologies. The framework would complement Technology Readiness Levels by assessing whether solutions are socially ready for deployment and scale-up.
Potential dimensions include accessibility, digital inclusion, citizen trust, skills readiness, data and AI acceptance, participation of vulnerable groups, institutional readiness and long-term adoption.
The concept could be validated through real-life municipal pilots involving different types of smart-city solutions, such as digital public services, mobility, energy, environmental monitoring or citizen-engagement technologies.
EILD can contribute to the development and validation of the social-readiness methodology through citizen and stakeholder engagement, needs assessment, inclusion of vulnerable groups, capacity building, community pilots, dissemination and impact monitoring.
Partners sought
Municipalities and regional authorities; universities and SSH research organisations; ICT/AI and smart-city technology providers; Living Labs; organisations specialising in behavioural science, accessibility, ethics and data governance.
Cooperation sought
Consortium building and joint development of a Horizon Europe proposal related to smart communities, digitalisation, resilience and inclusive urban innovation.
Similar opportunities
Partnership
Dr. Lütfiye Aydın
Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality – EU and Foreign Affairs Office at Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality
Kayseri, Türkiye
Project cooperation
Pilot Partners for Network Guardian
- Research
- Execution
- Technical
- Financing
- Sales/Distribution
Rishabh Banga
Owner at RBX Labs
Toronto, Canada
Project cooperation
QX - Trustworthy AI, AI Governance and Compliance-by-Design
Veselinka Kovaceva
Business and Operations Lead at QX
Wroclaw, Poland