IRIS is a HORIZON 2020 EU funded project beginning October 2017 for a duration of five years.
The project has been developed around three lighthouse cities - Utrecht (The Netherlands, coordinator), Nice (France), and Gothenburg (Sweden) - who will work as collaborators and test-beds for follower cities Vaasa (Finland), Alexandroupolis (Greece), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain) and Focsani (Romania).
Each city will draw upon a mix of universities and research organisations, local authorities, innovation agencies and private expertise to accelerate entire communities to adopt ambitious energy, mobility and ICT initiatives.
For five days between the 20-24 June 2018, the City of Amsterdam hosted one of the largest urban festivals in Europe. WeMakeThe.City was dedicated to a more collaborative and connected approach to ‘making cities better’ featuring 600 speakers and 30,000 participants over five days. Urbanist and researcher Namita Kambli was a roving reporter for IRIS on site.
On June 27th and 28th, the 7th edition of Innovative City took place in Nice, with the thematic "Innovation for better life & smart business".
Metropolitan council gives green light to creation and operation of a heating and cooling network to serve Nice Méridia. It will be the first geothermal network of the Nice Côte d'Azur Metropolis, distributing more than 30 GWh to heat and cooling to the entire neighborhood with 80% renewables. Another first: the creation in parallel of a multi-energy smart grid offer, accompanying the energy optimisation of the eco-district. The developments part of Nice Côte d'Azur goal to reach a 32% share of renewables in its energy mix by 2030.