Mission Climate adaptation, Mission Ocean & waters and Mission Soil Deal for Europe – Joint demonstration of an integrated approach to increasing landscape water retention capacity at regional scale
Programme Category
Programme Name
Programme Description
Horizon Europe is the European Union (EU) funding programme for the period 2021 – 2027, which targets the sectors of research and innovation. The programme’s budget is around € 95.5 billion, of which € 5.4 billion is from NextGenerationEU to stimulate recovery and strengthen the EU’s resilience in the future, and € 4.5 billion is additional aid.
Identifier Code
Call
Summary
This joint topic aims to support at least 75 full-scale deep demonstrations of climate resilience, to the Mission Ocean & Waters’ objective 1, protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, and objective 2, prevent and eliminate pollution of marine and freshwaters. It also contributes to the objectives of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), as well as to the freshwater objectives of the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 on the re-naturalisation of rivers and the restoration of floodplains.
Landscape water retention capacity is understood as the ability of water bodies, soils and other ecosystems to retain water after it has fallen as precipitation; it is fundamental for the protection of biological diversity as life depends on water. High landscape water retention capacity prevents accelerated surface run-off, increases water content in soils and surface and ground water availability for vegetation, improves the quantity and quality of groundwater and aquifer recharge, reduces soil erosion and nutrient run off into surface water bodies, and improves local micro-climate by reducing local air and biomass temperature. As such, it has the potential to prevent and mitigate impacts of extreme hydrological events such as floods and to act as a buffer against heat extremes.
Projects should demonstrate socio-ecological approaches and nature-based solutions to increase landscape and soil water retention capacity, leading to improvement of quality and quantity of ground and surface waters in the area where they are deployed, and boosting resilience to climate change impacts.
Detailed Call Description
Proposals should both:
- Involve at least five ‘associated regions’ as third parties, to showcase the feasibility, replicability and possibility to scale up the solutions developed. The consortium will proactively reach out to these associated regions to enable them to follow closely the project and its demonstration activities, transferring knowledge to them and technical assistance to build capacity and to implement integrated approaches for landscape, water and soil management to increase landscape water retention capacity in their territories; and
- Draw up an action plan and roadmap to replicate and scale up the solutions within the ‘associated regions’ and beyond them, to increase landscape water retention capacity, including soil water retention capacity.
As a mechanism to provide knowledge transfer and technical assistance to the associated regions, the selected project should provide support to third parties in the form of grants. The maximum amount of the envisaged Financial Support to Third Parties is €100 000 per third party for the entire duration of the action. Proposals should outline the process for selection of the third parties to which financial support would be granted, based on the principles of transparency, objectivity and fairness.
The project(s) funded under this topic should address all the below points:
- Contribute to the networking and coordination activities and joint activities of the three Missions, including by establishing links with projects funded under Horizon 2020, including the European Green Deal call, and under Horizon Europe, where they are relevant for climate adaptation and soil health knowledge and solutions;
- Include a mechanism and resources to establish links with the Implementation Support Platform of the Mission Ocean and Waters and build links with other activities of this Mission to maximize synergies;
- Include a mechanism and the resources to establish operational links with the Climate-ADAPT platform (run by the European Environment Agency (EEA) together with DG CLIMA) that will act as a central element for the monitoring, support and visualisation of the Adaptation to Climate Change Mission progress in European Regions. To this purpose, projects will feed their results to the Climate-ADAPT and EEA assessments and should include a mechanism to establish links with the Mission Adaptation to Climate Change Implementation Platform;
- Include a mechanism and resources to establish links with the Implementation Platform being established for the Mission A Soil Deal for Europe; and
- Support the Ocean and Water Knowledge System and the EU Soil Observatory, in particular by contributing to knowledge creation and data collection.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
70%
EU Contribution per project: €8.00 million
Thematic Categories
- Agriculture - Farming - Forestry
- Environment and Climate Change
- Fisheries/ Aquaculture and Maritime Policy
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
- Rural development
- Water - Management of Water Resources
Eligibility for Participation
- Farmers Unions
- Farmers, Agriculturalists
- Large Enterprises
- NGOs
- Non Profit Organisations
- Other Beneficiaries
- Private Bodies
- Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
- Semi-governmental organisations
- State-owned Enterprises
Eligibility For Participation Notes
Applying a multi-actor approach, demonstrations should be carried out at the level of socio-ecological territorial units that are large enough to allow covering the different living and non-living systems (soil, water, vegetation and other biota, human communities, etc.) in a landscape and the complex web of relations among them (e.g. a region or a sea/river basin).
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding.
The following additional eligibility criteria apply: In addition to the standard eligibility conditions, the consortium must carry out demonstration activities in 3 different Member States or Associated Countries of the Mediterranean basin, involving and including partners from these respective countries in the consortium.
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
Call Opening Date
Call Closing Date
National Contact Point(s)
Research and Innovation Foundation
29a Andrea Michalakopoulou, 1075 Nicosia,
P.B. 23422, 1683 Nicosia
Telephone: +357 22205000
Fax: +357 22205001
Email: support@research.org.cy
Website: https://www.research.org.cy/en/
Contact Person:
Myrto Anastasiadou
Scientific Officer
Email: manastassiadou@research.org.cy
(Publish Date: 20/02/2023-for internal use only)