Transition Open 2023

Closed

Code: 27155 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-EIC-2023-TRANSITIONOPEN-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: European Innovation Council-EIC (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 27/09/2023

The EIC Transition Open has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of technology or application. For any chosen field, EIC Transition projects should address, in a balanced way, both technology and market/business development, possibly including iterative learning processes based on early customer or user feedback.

Broadband Connectivity Voucher Scheme (Measure C4.1I2)

Closed

Code: 27152 | Identifier Code: Measure C4.1I2 | Programme name: 13607 | Start submission calls: 01/02/2023 | End submission calls: 30/09/2023

The ‘Connectivity Voucher Scheme’ aims to encourage the upgrading of the internal building infrastructure in Cyprus and the connection of end-users to Gigabit capable networks, deployed close to their residence, through the reduction of set-up cost and subscription fees. The main objective of the Scheme is to intensify demand for ultrahigh speed connections, while encouraging the market to invest in Very High Capacity Networks (VHCN), an objective that is fully in line with the Cyprus Broadband Plan 2021-2025.

Closing date of call: 30/09/2023 or until the amount of €3.5 million is absorbed.

Onsite digital technologies to monitor nutrients and chemical or biological stressors in soil and plants with relevance for food safety and nutrition

Closed

Code: 27149 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-03 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

Onsite digital technologies and applications are emerging in food production and have the potential to detect chemical and biological stressors in soil and plants to help assessing, managing and eventually eliminating potential food safety risks that these stressors may pose. There is a need to improve the development and application of digital tools in primary production and food industries and boost their technological scale-up as a means to address more effectively the soil-food nexus. Moreover, those technologies will help the food industry to track safety and quality of post-harvested food grown in soils.

Innovations to prevent and combat desertification

Closed

Code: 27147 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-04 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

In 2017, 25% of land in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe was estimated to be at high or very high risk of desertification. The risk is likely to have further increased since then, and to continue increasing because of accelerating climate change and continued pressures from land use and land-use change. Desertification leads to loss of biodiversity, of organic carbon and of other land-based ecosystem services, including reduced agricultural and forest productivity. Desertification further amplifies global warming through the release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases linked with the decrease in vegetation cover. Thus, it has severe environmental, social and economic consequences which need to be urgently tackled.

Back to earth: bringing communities and citizens closer to soil

Closed

Code: 27143 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-07 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

The Cultural and Creative sectors (CCIs), artists and civil society organisations can play a significant role in promoting a green transition by engaging people and giving visibility to environmental issues. Working together with soil experts, they can contribute to increasing soil literacy by mobilising the population in the protection and restoration of soil health as well as by tackling soil challenges through creative activities.

With regard to soil health, CCIs, artists and civil society organisations have a major role to play in acting as ambassadors and giving visibility to soil related challenges. They are key for raising awareness, for example on the importance of soil and its functions for society (e.g. documentaries, communication campaigns, podcasts, music, artistic performances, exhibitions, literary arts, etc.), and for inspiring and engaging people to take part in a broader debate and in taking actions, including through innovative methodologies and tools, arts and participatory processes. Arts and other creative forms of engagement have shown to be able to mobilise people that would otherwise not easily connect to more scientific or technical information on soils. Existing examples include initiatives to raise awareness on soils in schools by painting with earth colours or citizen projects on collective composting and urban gardening or the production of documentaries and exhibitions for the general public.

Various and innovative methodologies and tools to increase citizens’ awareness and engagement should be tested in different contexts to reach and involve a large number of people with the overall scope of increasing soil literacy across society.

Discovering the subsoil

Closed

Code: 27141 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

The term “subsoil” refers to the horizons immediately below the topsoil. The subsoil can have a large impact on soil’s potential for productivity and the supply of ecosystem services. Carbon sequestered in subsoils generally contributes to more than half of the total stocks within a soil profile. In contrast to topsoil, organic matter stored in subsoil horizons is characterised by high mean residence times. Conversely, subsoil degradation (e.g. through compaction, pollution, salinization) may limit root penetration, reduce nutrient uptake and result in plants becoming increasingly susceptible to stress such as from pests and diseases or drought and floods. Reduced water infiltration in subsoils limits plant growth, while increasing surface water runoff and the risk of soil erosion.

Activities under this topic should improve our understanding and knowledge of the links between the subsoil and ecosystem services, and they should promote practices that enhance the health status of subsoils in agriculture, forestry and urban areas, as well as in sites of nature conservation and sensitive landscapes.

Soil-friendly practices in horticulture, including alternative growing media

Closed

Code: 27138 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-05 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

Practices in horticulture can affect soil health and related ecosystem services at different points in the value chain, for example at production sites as well as further upstream. Within horticultural production systems, soils are often subjected to particularly intensive use, which can cause among others soil compaction, soil pollution (e.g. excess nutrients, pesticides or microplastics), and salinization as a consequence of intensive irrigation.
Peat is commonly used in nurseries, greenhouses and amateur horticulture as a growing medium and for soil improvement, as it has an excellent water retention capacity, is highly fertile due to the reduced leaching of nutrients and can improve the soil buffering capacity. The extraction of natural peat, however, is highly contentious as the disturbance of peatlands leads to habitat loss, soil degradation, CO2 emissions and increased flood risks. Therefore, sustainable alternatives to natural peat are required. While various peat-free or peat-reduced growing media have become more widely available in recent years, their performance with regard to environmental and other relevant criteria remains difficult to assess.

Soils in spatial planning

Closed

Code: 27136 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-06 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

Land is a limited resource and needs to be managed carefully to meet the various, sometimes conflicting societal demands on land and soil. Inadequate practices in land management and in land use planning are main drivers of land degradation and result in the loss of important soil functions.
In urban areas for example, soil sealing leads to reduced evaporation and infiltration of water into the soil.
In rural areas, fragmented landscapes lead to a loss of habitats for species and to reduced capacities of soils to perform important functions such as water regulation or carbon storage. At the same time, pressures on rural housing, also call for adequate planning to ensure that soil and land management addresses the manifold needs of rural populations. Spatial planning has a considerable role to play when it comes to steering a more balanced and sustainable use of land and ensuring that net land take is reduced, in particular if applying the principles of a “land take hierarchy“.
Activities under this topic should identify mechanisms and highlight associated benefits that accrue from the increased consideration of soil functions by the spatial planning sector, both in urban and rural environments.

Carbon farming in living labs

Closed

Code: 27130 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-09 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

Carbon farming can be defined as a green business model that rewards land managers for taking up improved land management practices, resulting in the increase of carbon sequestration in living biomass, dead organic matter and soils by enhancing carbon capture and/or reducing the release of carbon to the atmosphere, in respect of ecological principles favourable to biodiversity and the natural capital overall.

Living labs are collaborations between multiple partners that operate and undertake experiments on several sites at regional or sub-regional level. Individual sites could be e.g. farms, forest stands, urban green or industrial areas, enterprises and other entities, where the work is carried-out and monitored under real-life conditions, regardless of the land size, tenure (land ownerships) or the type of economic activity.

Lighthouses are individual, local sites (one farm, one forest exploitation, one industrial site, one urban city green area, etc.) that either can be part of a living lab or be situated outside a living lab.

Co-creating solutions for soil health in Living Labs

Closed

Code: 27128 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-08 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

More research is needed to restore and maintain healthy soils in the EU. There are three components are recognizable within the now well-established living labs research concept, which include (a) co-creation with a large set of stakeholders, (b) carried out in real-life settings and (c) involving the end-users.

Living labs are collaborations between multiple partners that operate and undertake experiments on several sites at regional or sub-regional level. Individual sites could be e.g. farms, forest stands, urban green or industrial areas, enterprises and other entities, where the work is carried-out and monitored under real-life conditions, regardless of the land size, tenure (land ownerships) or the type of economic activity.

Lighthouses are individual, local sites (one farm, one forest exploitation, one industrial site, one urban city green area, etc.) that either can be part of a living lab or be situated outside a living lab.

Soil pollution processes – modelling and inclusion in advanced digital decision-support tools

Closed

Code: 27125 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-02 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

The capacity to carry out a comprehensive scenario analysis at EU level on the impact of key drivers on soil pollution (e.g. societal behaviour, changes in emissions, climate, land management practices) is currently lacking. Soil-oriented fate and transport models exist for certain pollutants (e.g. pesticides, radionuclides, nutrients, metals) but they are generally not integrated with each other, often lack a temporal capacity, and do not always provide a quantification of actual risk to human and environmental health. Models that address the extent, fate, and transport, of emerging contaminants (e.g. microplastics, pharmaceuticals, PFAS) are even scarcer.

Environmental pollution modelling is also often compartmentalized despite a clear understanding that soil can be both a recipient of atmospheric deposition (e.g. nitrogen and sulphur) and a source of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gases (e.g. N2O, NH4, CO2, dust, nutrients). While also acting as a buffer to water bodies from pollutants, soils can be at the origin of some of the main problems affecting terrestrial ecosystems, freshwater and marine ecosystems (e.g. nitrification, eutrophication, pesticides, in both water column and sediment) as well as compromise the production of safe food and human health.

There is a clear need to demonstrate that policy measures that affect air quality or industrial emissions can, over time, have a positive impact also on soils and water bodies.

Atlantic and Arctic sea basin lighthouse – Addressing climate change and human activities threats to marine biodiversity

Closed

Code: 27123 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-OCEAN-01-03 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

Proposals will focus on developing and demonstrating ecosystem-based conservation measures and approaches for reducing cumulative pressure from human activities to address marine biodiversity loss at basin/regional level.
Project results are expected to contribute to the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the EU Arctic policy as well as to a basin-scale cooperation in the Atlantic and Arctic, including through transition arrangements that create socially and economically sustainable propositions for local stakeholders.

Cross-basin topic – Analysis of the obstacles and opportunities for repurposing aged/unused offshore infrastructures

Closed

Code: 27121 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-OCEAN-01-07 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

The increasing number of offshore infrastructures to be decommissioned in the near future in the European seas requires a sound assessment of environmental, social and technical impacts that decommissioning processes carry. Alternatives to decommissioning can be viewed as an opportunity to preserve the marine habitats around these platforms and to convert these infrastructures to other potentially valuable uses with environmental, economic and/or scientific benefits.

Proposals under this topic should focus on analysing options to decommissioning offshore platforms, in light of marine conservation and ecosystem protection, identifying possible business models and assessing related implications for policy/decision making and for public acceptance.

Incentive Scheme for the Upgrade of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations in Rural, Mountainous and Remote Areas to Modernize and Improve the Competitiveness of the Tourism Product – Call 2023

Closed

Code: 27117 | Identifier Code: C3.1I8 | Programme name: 13602 | Start submission calls: 14/02/2023 | End submission calls: 01/12/2023

The Deputy Ministry of Tourism announces the 1st Call of Incentive Scheme for the Upgrade of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations in Rural, Mountainous and Remote Areas to Modernize and Improve the Competitiveness of the Tourism Product, under the Recovery and Resilience Fund, to improve the competitiveness of the hotel sector by adding, improving and enriching the composition of the product in the mountains, the countryside and remote areas, thus aiming to extend the tourist season and penetrate new markets.

Scheme for the Digital Upgrade of Enterprises

Closed

Code: 27114 | Identifier Code: (Measure C3.3I4) | Programme name: 13602 | Start submission calls: 07/03/2023 | End submission calls: 31/03/2023

The Scheme aims to encourage investments in digital entrepreneurship and to strengthen the degree of integration of digital technology in existing or new SMEs, thus contributing to the strategic objectives of the Cyprus Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) to strengthen and accelerate the digital transition of the Cypriot economy. The main objectives of the Scheme are:

• The contribution to the digital transformation of the Cypriot economy
• The promotion of digital entrepreneurship.
• The increase in the number / percentage of small and medium enterprises that use information and communication technologies, including the field of e-commerce.
• Strengthening the digital identity of businesses.
• The creation of new opportunities for businesses through digital transformation.

The promotion of digital technology actions and advanced digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Blockchain, cloud computing and big data.

Cross-basin topic – Innovative nature-inclusive concepts to reconcile offshore renewables with ocean protection

Closed

Code: 27110 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-OCEAN-01-06 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

The EU offshore renewable energy strategy sets ambitious objectives for renewable energy production at sea, namely in relation to the REPowerEU Communication. These objectives are particularly relevant to quickly move away from our dependency on fossil fuels. Deployment of renewable energy solutions needs to be fast and coherent with the EU biodiversity protection and restoration targets. Offshore renewable infrastructures need to be built in such a way that they do not significantly harm the marine environment (e.g.: facilitating the expansion of invasive species) and even, where possible, contribute to restore marine ecosystems. Offshore infrastructures can already have positive impacts on the surrounding biodiversity and act as reefs and refuges for certain species. Nature-inclusive designs might further decrease the negative impacts and enhance desired effects.
Proposals should focus on truly multidisciplinary approaches for the development of nature-inclusive concept design of offshore renewable energy devices.

Roadmap towards the integration of inland waters into the Digital Twin Ocean

Closed

Code: 27107 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-OCEAN-01-09 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

The Digital Twin ocean will host a digital infrastructure with data services to facilitate data analytics, advanced modelling and high performance computing, development of what if scenarios to assess policies development in a context of resilience to climate change and sustainable development, supporting as well the implementation of local twins addressing specifics requested by stakeholders at all relevant scales from global to local.

The objective of the CSA is to prepare the development of the inland waters part (rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, snow and ice etc.) of the Mission Knowledge system, and address activities to be developed to make it integrated or interoperable with the Digital Twin Ocean for a unified Digital twin of Ocean and waters (addressing the hydrosphere as a whole) for the Mission and the lighthouses.

Different scales shall be addressed from catchment to global perspective of the water cycle.

The targeted inland water digital twin shall support the implementation of the Mission through its different lighthouses and specially supporting the one dedicated to Danube.

European Blue Parks – Protection and restoration of marine habitats

Closed

Code: 27104 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-OCEAN-01-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

Proposals under this topic will develop and demonstrate protection and restoration solutions to address the degradation of coastal and marine ecosystems. Proposals should significantly improve the management of marine protected areas in particular through definition of clear science-based conservation objectives and implementation of the necessary conservation measures to achieve those objectives. Amongst the conservation measures, proposals should entail implementation of passive restoration actions through e.g.: strict protection, either as a newly designated strictly protected areas or as part of the zoning in the existing marine protected areas. Proposals should address the whole marine ecosystem functioning in the designated area, including the seabed and its role in carbon storage and as fish spawning and nursery area. Proposals may address either specific vulnerable species or habitats that are under strong pressures or that have the most potential to capture and store carbon.

European natural lakes: demonstration of integrated approaches for protection and restoration of natural lake ecosystems and their biodiversity

Closed

Code: 27101 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-OCEAN-01-04 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

The proposals under this topic should design and demonstrate integrated and replicable approaches to protect and restore natural lake ecosystems and their biodiversity that result in a significantly improved ecological and chemical status and maintain it in the long-term. The integrated approaches should cover physical and biochemical elements and address in an integrated way all main pressures on the lake ecosystem. Proposals should also consider threats and risks associated to climate change and pressures on biodiversity.

The demonstration activities should combine measures and solutions to reduce pressures and stressors, to restore and protect the lake ecosystem and its biodiversity, in particular using effective nature-based and circular-biobased solutions in the lakes, along shorelines and across their catchments to reduce use of chemicals and retain nutrients. The demonstration sites should be located on natural lakes with a surface area exceeding 1 km2.

Lighthouse in the Baltic and the North Sea basins – Lighthouse in the Baltic and the North Sea basins – Green and energy-efficient small-scale fishing fleets

Closed

Code: 27098 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-OCEAN-01-05 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 17/01/2023 | End submission calls: 20/09/2023

Proposals under this topic are expected to identify a set of suitable innovative and sustainable solutions, technologies, practices and processes to be tested, validated and demonstrated in real conditions to reduce emissions and fuel consumption of small-scale fishing vessels (length of less than 12 m), to increase energy efficiency in their range of activities and comply with EU regulatory frameworks. Solutions should consider multi-disciplinary approaches and guarantee full integration in the vessels. The integrated solutions need to be tested at sea to ensure fitness for purpose in harsh marine environment and for all range of fishing-related activities. Innovative solutions such as battery/hybrid systems, wind-propulsion vessels as well as use of sensors, predictive analytics, data, etc. can be considered.
Impact assessment on the marine environment and its biodiversity should also be carried out as well as an analysis of the obstacles, opportunities and recommendations about good practices for reducing fuel consumption and emissions from small-scale fishing vessels and improving energy efficiency in their range of activities.