Learning Programme - Horizon2020

These are organised in five thematic learning modules:

Public Buildings

Covers buildings and facilities owned, managed, or controlled by public authorities. Facilities refer to energy consuming entities that are not buildings, such as wastewater treatment plants.

Private Buildings

Covers buildings owned, managed, or controlled by private individuals or corporations. These refer primarily to the tertiary sector (services), such as private companies, banks, commercial, and retail activities, hospitals, etc. and residential buildings, including social housing.

Transport

Covers the provision of and management of mass transit systems by public authorities, as well as private transport.

Public Lighting

Covers the provision of public lighting (e.g. street lighting and traffic lights) owned or operated by public authorities. Non-municipal public lighting is under private buildings.

Cross Sectoral

Covers all those interventions falling under two or more thematic areas; climate change adaptation; local electricity production e.g. wind power, hydroelectric power, photovoltaic; and local heat/cold production e.g. combined heat and power and district heating plant.

Mentors and mentee application are collected in a bottom-up process and applications can be highly diversified in terms of themes and interests.

The selection process:

First the mentors and the mentees who correspond well to the general selection criteria (see points 1, 2 below) are put on a pre-selected list. The mentees are further assessed based on the additional criteria as well to have a better picture about their needs and projects’ relevance.

After that, once the eligible and pre-selected mentors and mentees had been identified, they are matched with each other based on the matchmaking criteria (see point 3 below).

The selection process takes approximately 2 months and the learning program runs for 6 months after confirmation sent to all participants.

1. Mentors list of selection criteria

Relevant experience with innovative financial scheme (e.g. EPC).
The mentor has an existing project which is replicable and relevant for the mentees.
Project is on the relevant themes/ module (e.g. street lighting, public buildings).
Availability and commitment to prepare, work with the mentees and host them in a peer to peer context.
Quality of the application (e.g. if everything is filled in and detailed and how developed it is).
Employee of city or region from the eligible countries or proved official link with them (no students, consultants etc).
Budget to travel there needed to be manageable within project budget.
Sufficient level of English to run the learning program.

2. Mentees list of selection criteria

Project under preparation or intention to implement a similar project with a financial scheme/ or Readiness to learn about a financing scheme having clear objectives and support to use it.
City or region or linked to those (no students, consultants etc.).
Available mentor whose offered knowledge is closest to what the mentee needs.
Commitment to participate in the full learning program.
Commitment of the mentee to engage relevant stakeholders, political level.
Quality of the application (e.g. if everything is filled in and detailed and how developed it is).
Employee of city or region from the eligible countries or proved official link with them (no students, consultants etc.).
The travel to the mentor location needed to be within the limits of the project.
Priority given to those who have not yet participated in the programme but from the same city a different mentee can attend on own cost the same programme or another relevant programme.
Only one person/ mentee per city/ region could travel on projects’ cost. One additional person can travel on the cost of the mentee.
Sufficient level of English to participate in the learning program.

Additional criteria for acceptance for mentees:

Overall quality of the application.
Signatory to Covenant of Mayors.
"Evidence that the mentoring programme will help applicants achieve their energy and climate goals (e.g. clear proposed project and objectives for the exchange).
Evidence that the applicant can dedicate appropriate resources and staff to the twinning exchange (e.g. international profile, language skills, technical expertise).
"Evidence that the applicants have sufficient knowledge of chosen finance method to fully benefit from mentoring programme (e.g. moderate understanding).

3. Matchmaking list of criteria

Criterion 1: Matching mentors with a mentee – The pre-condition is that there needs to be an available mentor for the mentee with similar interest/ experience in an innovative financing scheme and/ or theme/ module (e.g. public buildings, mobility). The type of project prospective and theme (e.g. street lighting, public or private buildings) mentees seek to learn about. The type of financial instrument (if known) that prospective mentees want to learn about.

Criterion 2: The type of peer-to-peer learning arrangement (mentoring visit or study visit) preferred by mentors or seems to work best for both the mentor and the mentee based on their experience and expectations. There are also limited places per mentor (max 8 per study visit). Matching mentors with a mentee – groups of mentees for a study visit cannot exceed 8 participants; for mentoring visit max 2 mentees.

Criterion 3: Size of the municipality is similar (or type of municipality- city/ small town, region). The size of mentor cities/regions and mentee authorities/agencies

Criterion 4: Linguistic proximity, geographical location/region proximity of the mentor and mentees

The learning programme will be carried out in English, free of charge, and travel costs for one person per city will be reimbursed. There will be a total of 3 learning cycles, starting respectively in spring 2018, autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

We aim to engage a maximum of 10 individual participants per module per cycle. As there are five modules, this translate to 50 participants per cycle or 150 participants for all modules in 3 years.

Participants with similar interests are matched so that they can learn with and from each other on how to apply innovative financing schemes through peer mentoring and study visits.

If you are selected to be a mentor or mentee in one of the learning cycles, you will dedicate approximately 4 days throughout the whole learning cycle. The duration of a learning cycle is flexible, ranging from 4 to 9 months depending on the availability of the peers and development of each group.

Step 1 : Getting Started

Online Orientation Session

Step 2 : Working Together

Online Learning Plan Development & Peer Learning Activities

Step 3 : Meeting Up

Physical Visit and Peer Learning Activities

Step 4 : Moving Forward

Online Transferability Assessment & Evaluation - Feedback

Peer Mentoring

Peer mentoring is a one-to-one relationship between a mentor and a mentee characterised by more in-depth counselling and joint problem solving. During the Peer mentoring, mentor and mentees will carry out 3 online meetings and 1 physical meeting. It is estimated that each participant dedicates approximately 4 days throughout the whole learning programme.

Study Visits

Study visits allow a group of mentees to visit a mentor in order to exchange knowledge, learn from best practices in securing finance, and interact with key stakeholders. During the study visits, mentor and mentees will carry out 3 online meetings and 1 physical meeting; each participant dedicates approximately 4 days throughout the whole learning programme.

Why PROSPECT

PROSPECT Benchmark for Cities & Regions

Success Stories from PROSPECT

Public Buildings

Private Buildings

Transport

Public Lighting

Cross Sectoral

PROSPECT Matchmaking Description

1. Mentors list of selection criteria

2. Mentees list of selection criteria

3. Matchmaking list of criteria

Facts & Dates

Step 1 : Getting Started

Step 2 : Working Together

Step 3 : Meeting Up

Step 4 : Moving Forward

Peer Mentoring

Study Visits

Learning Module Handbooks

Public Buildings

Private Buildings

Public Lighting

Transport

Cross-Sectoral