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The project BeReady responds to program objective 2.2, Promoting climate change capacities in the Danube Region and disaster management on transnational level in relation to environmental risks taking into account ecosystem-based approaches. The common challenge that the 19 partners and 9 ASPs from 12 countries will tackle is urban heat islands (UHI). The unprecedented heat waves in the summer 2022 demonstrated the acute need to strengthen the preparedness and adaptive capacity of the society to cope with impacts of climate change and foster resilience at city level. Only few European cities have developed plans and strategies to counter UHI. The novel approach taken by the project – “green acupuncture” - will allow the partners, both cities and knowledge partners, to take targeted, small but powerful, context-based measures to deal with UHI in critical urban areas. City pilots will test solutions in three areas: “green acupuncture” (vegetation-based interventions); “white acupuncture” (based on innovative surfaces and materials); and “blue acupuncture” (novel uses of water resources). Leading principles of the project implementation (at all stages of the methodology definition and demonstration of technical and non-technical outputs) include evaluations to define the usefulnees of the solution, the impact on urban planning efficiency, and the impact of climate neutrality. The project main outputs include jointly developed and implemented methodologies and toolkits for UHI risk assessment, data analysis and modelling at city level (based on a collaborative policy Climate Sandbox); co-designed solutions for tackling UHI, tested and peer reviewed in urban environment by 12 pilot cities; a common strategy for improving the climate change preparedness and resilience aimed at local and regional authorities in the Danube region; action plans and transformative strategic outlooks for the participating partners; policy recommendations; a virtual training program with SPOCs; awareness campaigns in 12 countries over the 30-month period. The approach of jointly developing, testing and evaluating solutions contributes to most effective use of shared expertise for better understanding the effects of UHI in and building institutional capacity at local/regional level, for policy development and practical interventions. Key for BeReady is the ClimateSandbox approach that will support participating cities to define and deploy climate oriented innovations – both on the technological and service side (i.e. content) and on the policy, administrative and spatial planning side (i.e. enabling conditions), through the innovative digital Climate Sandbox Technological and Societal Readiness Tool. The project's ambition is to showcase to decision-makers and other stakeholders across Europe the benefits of adopting solutions in which care for the environment, simplicity, and aesthetics play a key role as value-generating agents as well as community engagement drivers, throughout the co-deign process, acting both at levels of solution definition, development and deployment.