Operating the Secretariat for the EU Initiative for Coal Regions in Transition

The EU Initiative for Coal Regions in Transition (CRiT), facilitates a just transition to a low-carbon economy for EU regions dependent on coal, peat, lignite, and oil shale (coal+ regions).

Since December 2018, Ecorys has been leading the Secretariat of the Initiative for CRiT, spearheading tasks such as:

1. Management and Coordination

Ecorys is managing and coordinating the Secretariat, ensuring collaboration amongst Consortium partners, efficient operation, quality control, and effective monitoring.

2. Operating the Initiative and forming a community

Ecorys played a pivotal role in setting up and is actively engaging a community of stakeholders from coal+ regions. This includes the organisation of high-level political conferences (the so-called Annual Political Dialogue) taking place in a coal region each year, facilitating working groups, exchanges and representing the CRiT Initiative at external events. As Ecorys, we also oversee the online helpdesk, which creates a dynamic platform for stakeholder engagement and support.

3. Technical Assistance for EU coal+ regions

Since 2019, 18 EU coal+ regions from ten EU Member States have received our technical expertise. We aided regions like Asturias (Spain), Jiu Valley and Gorj (Romania), Karlovy Vary (Czechia), Małopolska, Lower Silesia and Silesia (Poland), Heves County (Hungary), Megalopolis (Greece), Midlands (Ireland) and Zasavje (Slovenia).

The technical assistance programme was integrated with programmes and instruments offered by other institutions (i.e. the EIB) and implemented through collaborative approach with technical assistance recipients, i.e. (sub-)regional governments, development agencies , local energy clusters, trade unions and NGOs.

Assistance was provided in the fields of, among others: transition strategies development, governance arrangements and action plans, identification of project pipelines, communication and stakeholder engagement, and energy communities.

Deliverables resulting from the work included regional profiles, project fiches, project inventory, capacity development document, strategy & planning document, governance development document, etc. Learnings from the programme were codified to inform other tasks and for broader policy development.

4. Support material and communicationment and Serving as a Stakeholder Reference

Ecorys provided input for the development of toolkits, guidelines and best practices to support capacity-building in coal+ regions. Furthermore, Ecorys has developed and implemented activities along a communication and engagement strategy tailored to the needs of coal+ regions.

5. Collaboration with other EU Initiatives and global just transition stakeholders

On behalf of CRiT, Ecorys is sharing the experiences of EU coal+ regions with other European initiatives and programmes and cross-fertilising results and findings. In the past, the Secretariat also shared the European transition experience with stakeholders globally through, in total eight workshops/webinars with partners from the EU, the USA, Australia and India.

Ecorys has been leading the consortium that includes ICLEI, Wuppertal Institute, and Climate Strategies in three project phases (2019-2022; 2022-2025; 2025-2029).