GRAD ZADAR

Their core work

The City of Zadar is a Croatian coastal municipality that contributes to EU research projects as an urban demonstration site and real-world implementation partner. In H2020, Zadar brought city administration capacity to consortia testing green infrastructure and sustainable mobility — providing the urban governance structures, citizen-facing policy levers, and local political authority that laboratory or university partners cannot supply. Their practical value lies in deploying pilot solutions at city scale: installing green and blue infrastructure in public spaces, running social living labs with residents, and implementing Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) that shift how citizens move around the city. They are the kind of partner that turns research prototypes into municipal policy.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Zadar entered H2020 through GROW GREEN (2017) with a focus on urban nature — green roofs, water management, healthy city environments, and the broader sustainability framing of climate-resilient cities. Their second project, Park4SUMP (2018), pivoted sharply toward mobility governance: the language shifted from green infrastructure to SUMP methodology, parking policy, modal shift mechanics, and social living labs for behavioral change. This is a meaningful trajectory — from passive environmental improvement to active demand management of how citizens travel.

Zadar is moving from passive green city improvements toward active urban mobility governance, making them a plausible candidate for future SUMP implementation, low-emission zones, or smart parking projects.

How they like to work

Zadar has exclusively participated as a non-coordinating partner in both projects — they bring city authority and implementation capacity but do not drive research agendas. Despite only two projects, they engaged with 46 unique partners across 19 countries, which suggests they joined genuinely large Innovation Action consortia rather than small bilateral collaborations. This is the profile of a city that joins established networks as a pilot site, not an organization that builds its own project teams.

Zadar has connected with 46 distinct consortium partners across 19 European countries through just two projects — an unusually broad network for such a small participation footprint. No geographic concentration is evident, indicating they joined pan-European consortia rather than regionally focused ones.

What sets them apart

Zadar is a mid-sized Adriatic coastal city with a historic urban core — a context that is genuinely distinct from the Northern and Central European cities that dominate sustainable urban mobility and green city projects. For consortia that need Mediterranean or Adriatic urban pilot sites, Zadar fills a geographic gap. Their city administration has demonstrated willingness to commit to multi-year EU implementation projects, which is not universal among municipal partners.

Highlights from their portfolio

• GROW GREEN
  Largest funded project (EUR 119,620) combining climate resilience, water management, economic growth, and public health into a single urban nature-based solution framework — unusually broad scope for a city participant.
• Park4SUMP
  Focused specifically on parking management as a strategic lever for sustainable mobility, demonstrating Zadar's willingness to engage with politically sensitive urban transport policy instruments.