ROMA CAPITALE

Their core work

Roma Capitale is the municipal government of Rome, Italy's capital city with nearly 3 million residents. In H2020, it serves as a large-scale urban testbed — deploying and validating smart city solutions across transport, energy, food systems, cybersecurity, and citizen participation. The city brings real operational environments, regulatory authority, and direct access to diverse urban populations, making it an ideal pilot site for projects that need to demonstrate technologies at city scale. Its contributions center on urban governance, policy implementation, and providing real-world usage data from municipal operations.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In 2015-2018, Roma Capitale focused heavily on urban security, resilience management, and smart governance — projects like City.Risks, SMR, and smarticipate addressed how cities respond to threats, build resilience frameworks, and involve citizens in planning. From 2019 onward, the focus shifted decisively toward sustainability: energy transition (PLATOON, Sun4All), food systems (FUSILLI), cultural heritage preservation (HERILAND), and green mobility (LEONARDO). The municipality moved from "how do we keep the city safe and well-governed?" to "how do we make the city sustainable and equitable?"

Roma Capitale is increasingly positioning itself as a testing ground for fair energy transition and sustainable urban food systems, making it a strong pilot-site partner for Green Deal-aligned projects.

How they like to work

Roma Capitale never coordinates — across all 12 projects it participates exclusively as a partner or third party. This is typical for a large municipal authority: they bring the city as a living lab rather than leading research. With 222 unique partners across 28 countries, they operate in large, diverse consortia (averaging ~19 partners per project), which means they are experienced in multi-partner coordination and reporting even if they don't lead.

With 222 unique consortium partners spanning 28 countries, Roma Capitale has one of the broadest municipal networks in H2020. Their partnerships are pan-European with no narrow geographic concentration, reflecting the city's attractiveness as a demonstration site for consortia of all compositions.

What sets them apart

Rome is not just any European city — it is a megacity with 2.8 million residents, extreme infrastructure complexity, UNESCO heritage constraints, and Mediterranean climate challenges. This makes it a uniquely demanding testbed: if a smart city solution works in Rome, it can work almost anywhere in southern Europe. For consortium builders, Roma Capitale offers what few partners can — municipal authority, real citizen populations for pilots, and regulatory access to deploy and test at scale in a major capital.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ELVITEN
  Largest funding (EUR 369K) — field demonstrations of electric light vehicles with real usage data collection across the city.
• Sun4All
  Directly addresses energy poverty and just energy transition — highly aligned with current EU Green Deal priorities and social equity goals.
• FUSILLI
  Applies the living lab methodology to urban food systems, connecting urban and rural food planning — a growing policy area for European cities.