DxHub proudly took part in the Joint Meeting of the Excellence Hubs, held on July 2nd, 2025, in the historic city of Ioannina, Greece. This in-person event, co-organised by SolarHub and the ECHO Energy Communities Excellence Hub, brought together leading EU-funded projects aiming to accelerate the urban energy transition across Europe. Participants included CARBONICA, CHAngeing, COALition, DxHub, ECHO, METACITIES, SolarHub, and WaterWise. With 58 attendees, the meeting served as a dynamic platform to share strategic insights, explore sustainability pathways, and strengthen collaboration among projects, fostering synergies at both institutional and community levels.
Participants, organized into thematic working groups, were engaging in deep discussions on the structure and governance of energy communities and living labs. These exchanges were grounded not only in innovation but also in the unique architectural heritage and urban energy of Ioannina—an ideal setting where tradition and transformation meet.
DxHub proudly took part in the Joint Meeting of the Excellence Hubs, represented by our project coordinator, Angie Kolokousi. This significant event convened leading EU-funded initiatives, including:
- CHAngeing – Excellence Hubs
- COALition Hubs
- DxHub
- ECHO Energy Excellence Hub
- MetaCities Excellence Hub in South-Eastern Europe
- SolarHub
- WaterWise Hub
- CARBONICA
Using strategic foresight tools, participants explored long-term innovation pathways by identifying key trends, uncertainties, and plausible future scenarios. These activities fostered collaboration and laid the groundwork for a shared vision toward a sustainable and resilient 2050.
Representative from different EH projects collaborating on a team-building exercise
Creation of an Excellence Hubs Community
Currently, there are 25 on-going Excellence Hubs (EH) projects. These projects are coordinated by institutions from 12 different Widening Countries and include partners from 21 different Widening Countries. The 371 partners in these EH project include many of the leading Research and Innovation (R&I) actors in Widening Countries. However, these EH projects are largely being executed as silo-projects, and therefore large opportunities exist to use an EH Community to connect these projects to support inter-project collaborations.
Overall Aim: To create an EH Community that increases the impacts of our EH Projects by supporting
- Exploitation: Securing follow-up funding to sustain and grow our Excellence Hubs.
- Dissemination and Communication: Increasing awareness of and support for our EH projects among key stakeholders, especially funding and policy decision makers.
Themes that connect our EH Projects: The keywords used to describe these 25 EH projects were analyzed leading to the following initial outcomes, where the broad ideas should be robust but the details are still being refined. The cross-cutting theme “Prosperous” that includes Innovative, Strategic, Capable, and Place-Based was identified as being applicable to all 25 EH projects, and therefore is a theme that can connect all EH projects. Beyond this cross-cutting theme, projects clustered under the following emerging themes: Healthy (Diagnosis & Treatment, Prevention); Sustainable & Secure (Green, Blue, Circular, AgroFood, Energy, Water, Decarbonization); Digital & Smart (AI, AR / VR, Security, Smart Cities & Communities); and Leading (Aviation, Materials, Technologies, Cultural Heritage).
On 17 June 2025 the FWG organized an online Kick-Off Meeting for the EH Community that included presentations by two European Commission representatives and participation from more than 20 of the 25 EH projects.