CCRI-CSO

The CCRI Coordination and Support Office provides technical and comprehensive support over the whole life cycle of urban and regional circular economy initiatives of cities, regions and territorial clusters from Europe. Based on the selection results of an open call, 12 selected Pilots benefit from four years of knowledge-sharing with technical support to speed up their circular policy implementation. More specifically, the 12 Pilots will demonstrate and facilitate the replication of at least one Circular Systemic Solution in a specific territory. Furthermore, the 25 selected Fellows liaise to the Pilot group to engage in this multistakeholder learning process, liaising them with industry representatives, research and technology organisations and civil society stakeholders across Europe’s. CCRI is aiming for the highest ambition and best ideas to capitalise cross sectorial cooperation and innovation and the biggest potential for transferability of these Circular Systemic Solutions (CSS) to other cities, regions and territorial clusters.

More specifically, the CCRI-CSO:

• supports cooperation, synergies and complementarities between the CCRI Pilots and Fellows, CCRI Projects, Associated Partners and other relevant stakeholders;
• assists the CCRI Pilots with the development of their CSS, as well as supporting good practice exchange and upscaling;
• analyses the main research and innovation gaps, but also the main policy, technical, regulatory barriers and drivers to circular economy transition at local and regional scale, and providing policy recommendations to overcome them;
• presents lessons learned from CCRI-CSO activities for further dissemination, communication and awareness raising activities. 

Making circularity work for people, cities and regions, is one of the key ambitions of the New European Circular Economy Action Plan. With the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative, the European Commission provides an instrument for accelerating the transition to a circular economy on local and regional scale by providing key assistance to cities and regions. The Circular Cities and Regions Initiative complements the proposed European Urban Initiative and the Intelligent Cities Challenge Initiative. There will also be synergies with other policy frameworks, such as the Green Deal and the European Bioeconomy Strategy. Circular economy will also be among the priority areas of the Green City Accord. 

The CCRI is the ideal steppingstone for cities and regions to gain first-hand information about funding opportunities and build their network to participate in the wider CCRI ecosystem, which also includes funding. These funding opportunities include €200 million for circular economy demonstration projects focusing on experimentation and at least €40 million for project development assistance with investment proposals applying for project development grants from Horizon Europe and Circular Economy Technical Assistance Facility grants from the European Investment Bank. While the demonstration grants are for experimental projects, the project development assistance targets mature initiatives at the beginning of their investment phase, speeding up the full-scale roll-out of these circular activities. 

CCRI opportunities for ERRIN-members in 2026

The Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) is organising a final hybrid Multi-Stakeholder Dialogues CCRI policy recommendations in view of the Circular Economy Act on 12 February 2026, 14:00-16:00 CET. Interested stakeholders can register here. 

The in-person meeting will be hosted by the European Commission at the Borschette building located at Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Etterbeek/Brussels, Belgium. Please note that registrations for in-person attendance will be closed on 4 February (noon). After the aforementioned deadline, registrations for in-person attendance will no longer be possible, and online participation will be allowed.