The grant call “21st century street section” seeks innovative processes for more sustainable road surfaces and pavements, helping to reduce the carbon footprint without compromising durability, functionality and the conservation of the urban landscape, and which at the same time allow new technologies to be integrated to redesign road building techniques.

The new challenge gives continuity to the urban challenge “21st century panot”, launched in 2022 to find a new panot paving stone to conserve the heritage value of Barcelona’s classic paving design, but to be more sustainable, based on the circular economy and cutting the carbon footprint.

The challenge is aimed at industry, engineering, universities, research centres and innovation, foundations and sectoral organisations. The teams taking part must guarantee that their project does not exist on the current market and that the pilot projects can be tested in a real environment, scaled up and replicated.

The submission period for projects is open until 30 September. The call will award up to a maximum of 90,000 euros for each of the two winning projects, covering a maximum of 80% of the overall budget for each one.

The results of the winning projects will be announced at the end of the year and they are expected to be tested as pilot projects in a real environment, in works managed by BIMSA in the city during the fourth quarter of 2026. The prototype will be monitored for a year to assess the results.

Collaboration agreement with Barcelona Provincial Council

Barcelona City Council, through the Fundació BIT Habitat, and Barcelona Provincial Council have signed a collaboration agreement to promote joint initiatives in the sphere of urban innovation and climate action.  With an initial duration of four years, the alliance aims to strengthen the innovation ecosystem, promote the generation of knowledge and the attraction and retention of talent, and foster new public management models to promote urban innovation as a lever for improving people’s quality of life.

Notable areas of work include the resolution of urban challenges through innovative solutions that do not yet exist on the market; initiatives to drive citizen participation in the creation of projects for challenges addressed by the city and facilitating pilot projects in real environments.

The challenge “21st century street section” is the second call within the framework of the agreement, with Barcelona Provincial Council to provide 100,000 euros.