CFPs: European Commission’s Biodiversity Grant Programme

This coordination and support action aims also at supporting the PRIME initiative by achieving a harmonised/common acknowledged environmental scorecard for rail infrastructure manager and identifying opportunities for improvement in ecosystem services resulting from the management of habitats, vegetation, water and soil quality, while leading the elaboration of national transport management plans to be used in new construction projects.

Scope

• The following R&I work-streams have been identified for addressing all the expected outcomes:
  • Workstream 1: Bridging the transport infrastructure & energy distribution and production networks together with biodiversity to tackle climate change
    • The development of a biodiversity-friendly approach for different types of transport infrastructure has been included in the actions of national and international authorities in various forms for several years. The aim of this workstream is to bridge energy at its latest technology state of the art/innovation and rail transport identifying best possible matches that deliver rail solutions to tackle climate change.
    • The technical objectives of the funded project include addressing the approach and promoting synergies between transport and energy sectors, the development of an inclusive assessment framework of the impacts from infrastructure on biodiversity enabling procurement improvements through harmonised, transparent, and robust data generation. The project shall aim to support stakeholders in decision-making by analysing the existing situation.
    • The economic aspects of the project include leveraging the use of the multilateral platform(s) for the preparation of sustainable infrastructure projects and enabling the achievement of green bonds, with criteria and scoring to be established, and contributing to its support and dissemination as capacity building in developing countries, in particular in connection with the EU Global Gateway.
    • Proposals should take into account the societal perspective. The objective is to promote the development of a holistic approach to environmental mainstreaming of infrastructure by producing comparable results to demonstrate the benefits and impacts of infrastructure projects on public health and well-being, and better integration in the policy-making processes.
  • Workstream 2: Valuing the nature on railways
    • A well-managed green infrastructure will bring biodiversity benefits, but also helps support safer and more reliable railways operations. With the increasing importance given to railways to ensure net zero emissions reality, it is expected that the amount of land designated to railways, including infrastructure and real estate, will increase in Europe. This land take may be challenged in terms of environmental impact and loss of habitats.
    • Railways must be able to clearly demonstrate the value from railway green infrastructure and that there is no loss of value from investing in new infrastructure when it is designed well. Through innovative digital remote monitoring and biodiversity consideration in early design of infrastructure, the way the lineside is understood is changing.
    • The framework set under the project aims to harmonise the European railway community in identifying opportunities for improvement in ecosystem services resulting from the management of habitats, vegetation, water and soil quality, while leading the elaboration of national transport management plans to be used in new construction projects.
    • The project stemming from this topic focuses on providing a ranking system to generate new sources of funding, as well as the development of a long-term monitoring and reporting system with a carbon emission calculator developed for use in new construction projects based on the metrics identified in the habitat management context, as well as to guide the sector with a tool for the collection of harmonised transparent and robust data for use on European railways and to improve procurement processes.
    • Additionally, a standardised approach to ensure the sustainability of railways and to guide different stakeholders towards effective and efficient land management practices will strengthen the development of a common European biodiversity metric to benchmark data on railways.

Funding Information

• The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:
  • public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
  • cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).

Expected Outcomes

• The Project stemming from this topic should deliver the following outcomes, considering rail as the backbone of the future mobility system:
  • Reach applicable recommendations for the development and improvement of cross-cutting biodiversity and climate policies. This will serve as a baseline for the transport and energy sector, to be used in a holistic way when planning future endeavours so the design, construction, and maintenance phases of the any relevant projects shall take into account biodiversity and net zero emissions all throughout the lifecycle including the land use management in railways.
  • Develop technical methodologies to evaluate the environmental efficiency of rail transport infrastructure and its impact on ecosystem services and climate challenge. The methodology should address how to score/the expected scoring performance on innovative green infrastructure solutions. This should lead to an identification of metrics/KPI and targets for them that will help monitor the progress.
  • Inclusive assessment framework of the impacts from infrastructure on biodiversity enabling compiling heterogeneous data.
  • Filling gaps in the accounting of joint carbon and biodiversity “transboundary” impacts between energy and transport sectors and identify ways to address them.
  • Providing a user-friendly, open data-driven carbon emission calculator for use in railway infrastructure projects.

Eligible Activities

• Projects must focus exclusively on civil applications and must not:
  • aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes;
  • intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable (except for research relating to cancer treatment of the gonads, which may be financed);
  • intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research, or for the purpose of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer.
• The following activities are generally eligible for grants under Horizon Europe:
  • Research and innovation actions (RIA) — Activities that aim primarily to establish new knowledge or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. This may include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing, demonstration and validation of a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment
  • Innovation actions (IA) — Activities that aim directly to produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. These activities may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.
  • Coordination and support actions (CSA) — Activities that contribute to the objectives of Horizon Europe. This excludes research and innovation (R&I) activities, except those carried out under the ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’ component of the programme (part of ‘Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area’).
  • Programme co-fund actions (CoFund) — A programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies. Such a programme of activities may support: networking and coordination; research; innovation; pilot actions; innovation and market deployment; training and mobility; awareness raising and communication; and dissemination and exploitation.
  • Innovation and market deployment actions (IMDA) — Activities that embed an innovation action and other activities necessary to deploy an innovation on the market. This includes the scaling-up of companies and Horizon Europe blended finance
  • Training and mobility actions (TMA) — Activities that aim to improve the skills, knowledge and career prospects of researchers, based on mobility between countries and, if relevant, between sectors or disciplines.
  • Pre-commercial procurement actions (PCP) — Activities that aim to help a transnational buyers’ group to strengthen the public procurement of research, development, validation and, possibly, the first deployment of new solutions that can significantly improve quality and efficiency in areas of public interest, while opening market opportunities for industry and researchers active in Europe.
  • Public procurement of innovative solutions actions (PPI) — Activities that aim to strengthen the ability of a transnational buyers’ group to deploy innovative solutions early by overcoming the fragmentation of demand for such solutions and sharing the risks and costs of acting as early adopters, while opening market opportunities for industry.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
• A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
    • Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States:
    • Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
  • countries associated to Horizon Europe;
    • Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine
• Specific cases:
  • Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities are eligible for funding if they are established in one of the countries listed above, or in a country identified in the specific call conditions.
  • Associated partners — Entities not eligible for funding (and therefore not able to participate as beneficiaries) may participate as associated partners, unless specified otherwise in the specific call conditions.
  • Coordination and Support Actions – To be eligible to participate as beneficiaries (or affiliated entities) in ‘Coordination and support’ actions, legal entities must be established in a Member State or Associated Country, unless the specific call conditions provide otherwise.
  • EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law may also be eligible to receive funding, unless their basic act states otherwise.
  • International organisations — International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. Unless their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority, other international organisations are not eligible to receive funding.

For more information, visit European Commission.