Before implementation: (De)politicization in the proposal phase of EU-funded urban experiments

Urban experimentation has become central to sustainability transitions, evolving from grassroots initiatives toward mainstream adoption in European Union policy programs. While this shift expands resources and visibility, it also embeds experiments within managerial politics that demand standardized proposals aligned with EU priorities and evaluation templates. Within this context, the proposal-writing stage becomes a formative yet overlooked moment where experimental trajectories are fixed before implementation begins. This paper develops and illustrates a heuristic framework for analyzing how (de)politicization shapes EU-funded urban experiments during the proposal phase. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe's distinction between politics and the Political, the framework identifies four domains – representation, agenda-setting, legitimation, and distribution – where institutional embedding intersects with political contestation. The framework is illustrated through expert interviews with EU funding practitioners and a case study of the ATELIER Horizon 2020 project on Positive Energy Districts. The analysis illustrates how proposal frameworks may privilege established actors and measurable outputs while marginalizing uncertain or radical ambitions, even as internal debates reveal traces of contestation that rarely stabilize in final texts. The paper closes with implications for urban experimentation scholarship and recommendations for designing more politically reflexive EU funding architectures.