Job Titles: NZC City Expert Support Facility Coordinator
Team: NetZeroCities
Contract: Fixed term 1 year
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Please refer to our Capability Framework
Location: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovenia
Start Date: January 2025
Apply by: We're interviewing on a rolling basis until we close the role. We advise you to apply early as we may close the role early if we have a sufficient pool of candidates.
ABOUT US
At EIT Climate-KIC, we are wholeheartedly committed to building a diverse and representative team and an inclusive workplace that values different life experiences and perspectives, and we encourage personal development, learning and growth.
When recruiting, we look to achieve diversity in the candidate pool. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups and are happy to consider reasonable adjustments that will foster success in potential employees from diverse backgrounds and life situations. And because our team has differing needs and personal circumstances, we offer a high degree of flexibility to accommodate all working patterns. We’re happy to discuss your situation during the interview and see how best we can support you.
Don’t let Imposter Syndrome stop you from applying!
EIT Climate-KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community) is Europe’s foremost climate innovation initiative, entrusted by the European Commission to catalyse transformation through innovation. Headquartered in Amsterdam, with circa 160 people distributed all over the EU, EIT Climate-KIC leads and orchestrates innovation with a community of more than 400. Together we conduct activities in 39 countries. We partner with cities, regions, governments and communities with the highest climate action ambition; providing the framework and expert support to holistically manage the complexity of climate change and deliver accelerated climate action.
EIT Climate-KIC operates as a not-for-profit platform working through public-private partnership, wielding both public and private funding. We consist of 3 Legal entities: a Dutch BV Holding company (for profit) with 14 branches in European jurisdictions, providing grant management, innovation orchestration services, and impact investment advisory owned by a Dutch-based foundation with charity status – Climate-KIC International Foundation. Historically, we have been funded by our founder and core funder, the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT), but we are currently transitioning to a multi-funder model.
ABOUT NetZeroCities
NetZeroCities (NZC) is a project designed to help cities overcome the current structural, institutional, and cultural barriers they face to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. NZC recognises the need for cities to develop specific strategies that are tailored to suit local and regional contexts, and supports them by developing, promoting, and integrating new and existing tools, resources, and expertise into an online platform accessible to all cities (Mission Platform). The project – designed to support cities that are part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe supported Mission “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” – tailors advanced capabilities related to systemic change, citizen engagement and democratic, participatory governance, capital and financial structuring, and social innovation, to ensure cities have access to expertise needed to address their challenges in becoming climate neutral.
About the City Expert Support Facility
The City Expert Support Facility (CESF) is an EU-funded resource designed to provide expertise and support to NZC ‘Pilot’ and ‘Mission Cities’ navigating the complexities of achieving climate neutrality. The CESF's "Emergent and Additional Support" offers personalised expert assistance to cities on a one-to-one, case-by-case basis and aims to complement existing support mechanisms in the NZC Mission Platform, like the Pilot Cities Programme and City Support Groups, by mobilising targeted expert support. It addresses acute and emergent challenges/needs as they arise in the course of the implementation of pilot activities and other Mission work that existing mechanisms cannot fully support.
Support is provided by both NZC consortium partners and, where expertise is not available from within the consortium itself but is critical to a proper development and implementation of pilot activities, external parties and/or local partners are engaged, including from within the NZC Community of Practice (CoP). Local partners are engaged where capacity is needed for context, culture, and/or language capabilities, or where more intensive local capacity is needed.
The CESF was launched in March 2024, initially to support Pilot Cities in the NZC Pilot Cities Programme Cohort 1 (2023-2025) before expanding to provide broader expert support to Mission Cities and their Mission related activities. The CESF is in a significant period of expansion with submissions increasing in recent months, leading to the need to recruit for a CESF Deployment Coordinator to support the CESF Team and key process stakeholders to scale the facility and ensure effective and timely delivery, impact, and learning.
Key Tasks
The following list of key tasks is indicative and not exhaustive and represents the need to support the scaling of existing processes and procedures as well as design, plan, and execute new processes to support and analyse overall facility impact, outcomes, lessons learned, and dissemination.
- End-to-end City Expert Support Facility:
- Support the CESF Team in the implementation of the end-to-end deployment of the facility, executing against individual requests received through the given process and governance framework.
- Supporting the CESF Manager and stakeholders to review, analyse and scope/refine requests for subsequent procurement (and/or coordinating contributing NZC partners in this process).
- Ensure procurement of internal and external expertise to be in line with EU rules and requirements, whilst responding to the decisions of the Grant and Resource Allocation Committee (GARAC).
- Support the CESF Team and GARAC to promote the CESF internally and externally (to cities).
- Support for Contract Drafting and Negotiation:
- Supporting the drafting, review, and negotiation of a wide range of CESF contracts.
- Collaborate with stakeholders including the Climate-KIC procurement team, involved cities and external parties (service providers) to finalise contract terms.
- Contract Management and Compliance:
- Manage the contract lifecycle, ensuring that all contractual obligations are met and that key dates (e.g. renewals, expirations, deliverables, payments) are tracked.
- Maintain a comprehensive contract repository and ensure all contracts are stored and easily accessible.
- Ensure cooperation and connectivity between the NZC consortium, cities and external service providers, monitor contract performance, identifying any issues or discrepancies and ensuring that all parties adhere to agreed-upon terms; as well as monitor quality of the support delivery and learning and dissemination opportunities for other cities.
- In collaboration with Finance colleagues, support and conduct contract audits and assessments to ensure Horizon Europe compliance and identify areas for improvement
- Learning and impact:
- Support the CESF Team and stakeholders to analyse, evaluate, and generate insights from facility deployment and individual support cases, and contribute to learning and dissemination opportunities to support cities, the Cities Mission, and NZC in the execution of their work.
- Risk Management:
- Identify potential risks in contracts and propose appropriate mitigations.
- Provide guidance to internal teams on contract risks and how to manage them.
- Work closely with the legal team to address complex legal issues related to contracts.
- Stakeholder Communication:
- Communicate with CESF applicants (cities), bidders (suppliers), and stakeholders (NZC City Support colleagues) as required, throughout the process.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for all contract-related matters.
- Liaise with internal teams (e.g., procurement, finance, project management), cities and external partners to ensure smooth contract execution.
- Maintain records for correspondence and documentation in relation to established contracts and those in progress as necessary according to the Horizon 2020/Europe requirements.
- Provide regular updates to the oversight committee (GARAC) on pipeline, deployment, and contract status and issues.
- Process Improvement:
- Develop and implement best practices for contract management, including the use of contract management software where applicable.
- Continuously improve CESF/contract templates, workflows, and processes to increase efficiency and reduce risks.
- Provide guidance/training to internal teams on contract terms, management processes and best practices.
This is a new role and a new and innovation facility, which means there will be opportunity to grow and iterate the role based on needs, potential impact/enhanced outcomes, and interests. As the role will work with a wide array of stakeholders across Climate-KIC, NetZeroCities, Mission Cities, and external suppliers, the role holder will be exposed to the cutting edge of NetZeroCities’ efforts to support 112 cities to become carbon neutral by 2030, and will be encouraged to look for opportunities to engage with and connect the work of the CESF with stakeholders in meaningful, impactful, and Mission-support ways.
Key relationships
- CESF Manager
- NZC Pilot Cities Programme Orchestrator
- Grant and Resource Allocation Committee (Secretary, et al.)
- NZC Pilot Cities Programme Officer (CESF Officer)
- Climate-KIC / NZC Finance
- Climate-KIC / NZC Procurement Lead & legal team
- Climate-KIC / NZC Monitoring, evaluation and learning team
- NZC Consortium partners (City Advisors, City Support & Specialists, expert partners)
- Third-party suppliers
- Mission and Pilot Cities representatives
