DUT Call 2025

Created under Horizon Europe, EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation, the DUT partnership aims to tackle the challenges of urban transition by involving regional, municipal and local communities. DUT aims to create a strong community around urban transitions and to establish a well-known research and innovation platform that will help cities become more sustainable, inclusive and liveable.

Together with the European Commission, the DUT Partnership aims to support, through the 2024 co-funded call, transnational research and/or innovation projects aligned with the three Transition Pathways (TPs) which constitute the strategic pillars of DUT.

15-minute City Transition Pathway (15mC TP):

• 15mC Topic #1: Next steps for multimodal urban mobility, building on the travel experience
• 15mC Topic #2: Reimagining parking – transforming urban parking policies*
• 15mC Topic #3: Mobility policymaking in context of radical contestation*

* These topics are not funded by FCT – see information about FCT at Annex A: Specific Funding Agencies’ Budgets and Rules of Eligibility, in the Call Text, available in the Call Documents area)

Circular Urban Economies Transition Pathway (CUE TP):

• CUE Topic #1: Resilient green and social infrastructure
• CUE Topic #2: Sustainable tourism – circular benefits and challenges
• CUE Topic #3: Public procurement to foster urban greening and circularity

Positive Energy Districts Transition Pathway (PED TP):

• PED Topic #1: Driving a just transition: PED strategies in social and subsidised housing
• PED Topic #2: Ensuring positive socio-economic impact: PEDs in local economies and energy markets
• PED Topic #3: PEDs in urban heating and cooling strategies

1. The following are individual or co-promotion beneficiaries:

1. Non-entrepreneurial entities of the R&I system, namely:

1. Higher education institutions, their institutes and R&D units;
2. State, Associated or International Laboratories based in Portugal;
3. Private non-profit institutions whose main purpose is R&D activities, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centres (TIC);
4. Other non-profit public and private institutions developing or participating in scientific research activities.

2. Companies of any nature and in any legal form.

The information contained in this section does not exempt you from consulting Article 3 of FCT’s Regulation No. 999/2016, in its current wording, i.e., as amended and republished by Regulation No. 5/2024 and corrected by Rectification Statement No. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 (see FCT Regulation in Call Documents and the applicable national and European Union legislation).

DUT Call 2024 consists of the submission of pre-proposals (1st phase) and full proposals (2nd phase). Only the pre-proposals submitted by the transnational consortia in the 1st phase may be invited to submit full proposals in the 2nd phase.

Each Proposing Institution (PI) that is part of a transnational consortium can only apply for funding from the Participating Funding Agencies (PFA) of its country or region. See Annex A: Specific Funding Agencies' Budgets and Rules of Eligibility, in the Call Text (under Call Documents), for information on the eligibility rules of each PFA and on the transnational eligibility rules. For a proposal to be eligible, it must comply with the national and transnational eligibility rules.

To submit their application, each Portuguese PI wishing to apply for funding from FCT should:

1. Consult the Call Text in ‘Call Documents'.
2. Consult FCT eligibility rules in Annex A: Specific Funding Agencies’ Budgets and Rules of Eligibility.
3. Submit, through the coordinator of the transnational consortium, the proposal form on the application submission platform (see 'Important links') by 12:00 GMT Portugal mainland time on 17/11/2025.
4. send to FCT, within 10 working days after the deadline for submitting the application, a Statement of Commitment (SoC) completed and signed by the Researcher in Charge (RC) identified by the PI and by a qualified representative of the PI. The SoC should be sent to the emails indicated in Contacts. 

Please note:

• Failure to send the SoC to FCT on the date referred to in paragraph 4, or the unjustified delivery of the SoC after that deadline, or the delivery of an incomplete SoC, without one of the two parts – RC and PI – that make it up or without the signatures of the Portuguese RC and/or a qualified representative of the Portuguese PI, will result in the application being declared ineligible.
• If two or more Portuguese applicants from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from FCT, each must send a completed and signed SoC to FCT.
• One SoC must be sent to FCT for each application submitted by the same RC and PI.
• Portuguese partners of transnational consortia that do not apply for funding from FCT do not need to submit the SoC to FCT.
• The PI stamp or white seal is only required on manually signed SoC.

The information on this page is only a summary of the call, does not exempt the candidates from carefully reading all the call documents available on this page and on the call website (see Important links) and refers only to FCT’s participation in this call, unless expressly indicated.

Eligibility

The eligibility check of proposals is carried out at both stages of the call (pre-proposal submission stage and full proposal submission stage):

• National/Regional Funding Agencies check national eligibility of applications, ensuring compliance with the formal requirements in the applicable national/regional regulations and other applicable documents (see FCT Regulation, Normas de execução financeira and national annexes in the Call Documents area).
• Transnational eligibility check of applications will be performed by the Call Secretariat, according to the transnational eligibility criteria presented in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

Please note:

• For a proposal to be declared eligible it must fulfil both the national and transnational criteria.
• FCT and Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional do Centro (CCDRC),
• as Portuguese funding agencies on this call, reserve the right to evaluate the possibility of transferring application(s) to other Portuguese funding agency/agencies if an application is considered non-eligible by the funding agency selected by the candidate institution, but is eligible by the other Portuguese funding agency/agencies. The transfer of applications will be carried out in accordance with the terms set out in the MoU signed between the parties.

Evaluation

The call includes two evaluation phases:

• Pre-proposal evaluation stage.
• Full proposal evaluation stage.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the evaluation criteria described in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

The participating national/regional funding agencies, will decide, according to the stage the call is at, which 1) pre-proposals to invite to submit a full proposal and which 2) proposals to recommend for funding.

• FCT financial commitment for the call: 500.000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese coordination: 200.000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese participation: 100.000,00€

Please note:

• Portuguese institutions funding must follow FCT’s Regulation No. 999/2016, in its current wording, i.e., as amended and republished by Regulation No. 5/2024 and corrected by Rectification Statement No. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 (see FCT Regulation and Normas de execução financeira in Call Documents and the applicable national and European legislation).
• If more than one Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium applies for funding from FCT, the combined budget requested from FCT by the Portuguese applicants may not exceed the maximum funding limit for a consortium with Portuguese coordination (200.000,00€) or with Portuguese participation (100.000,00€). The Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium will have to share the funding that will be granted by FCT.
• Each Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium may only apply for funding from one Portuguese participating funding agency, FCT and CCDRC.
• If two or more Portuguese applicants from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from the Portuguese participating funding agencies, FCT and CCDRC, the combined funding to be requested to both agencies by the Portuguese applicants will be considered as referring to a single project for the purpose of maximum requested funding. Example: If the maximum funding from FCT and CCDRC for a consortium with Portuguese participation is 100,000.00€ for each agency, two Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium may apply for up to 50,000.00€ from FCT and up to 50,000.00€ from CCDRC.
• If FCT or CCDRC reach the limit of the budget that each of the agencies has set for funding projects under this call before the number of projects selected for funding by each of these agencies is exhausted, the projects selected for funding that do not have funding may be transferred to the agency that still has the budget to fund projects, provided that the respective eligibility criteria are met. The transfer of projects recommended for funding will be carried out in accordance with the conditions set out in the MoU signed between the parties.
• The dedication (FTE) in transnational projects is not considered for the 100% (FTE) dedication to national projects.
• Under the terms of number 2 of Article 7 of the Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, payments made directly or indirectly to companies through the Proposing Institution cannot exceed 50% of the total cost of the company’s participation.

Call website

Matchmaking platform

Application submission platform

DUT website

Partnership page on the FCT website

Alexandre Maurício
alexandre.mauricio@fct.pt
Tel: (+351) 213 917 648

Joana Pinheiro
joana.pinheiro@fct.pt
Tel: (+351) 213 911 567