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Call key data
Development of high spatial-resolution monitoring approaches and geographically-explicit registry for carbon farming
Funding Program
Horizon Europe: Missions
Call number
HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01-07
deadlines
Opening
08.05.2024
Deadline
08.10.2024 17:00
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 23,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
€ 11,500,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
Activities under this topic will help to progress towards the objectives of the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’, in particular specific objective 2 “Conserve and increase soil organic carbon stocks”. Activities will also support the proposed Carbon Removal Certification (CRC) Framework (including through collaboration with the Commission’s Expert Group on Carbon Removals), the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) Regulation, the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU Action Plan on the development of Organic Production, and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on Climate action.
Call objectives
With the European Commission’s proposal for a first EU-wide voluntary framework to reliably certify high-quality carbon removals (Carbon Removal Certification -CRC- Framework), the EU aims to boost sustainable carbon farming solutions by significantly improving Europe's capacity to quantify, monitor and verify carbon removals. Higher transparency will ensure trust from stakeholders and prevent greenwashing. The development of soil carbon removal deployment strategies and a robust and validated soil carbon monitoring system approach, at scale relevant for land managers, are therefore crucial. This system approach is currently underdeveloped and solid and reliable data for establishment of baselines for soil carbon at parcel level across Europe are missing. The system approach should further the potential for financial rewards to farmers and forest managers/owners who excel in their carbon farming practices, in line with the CRC Framework proposal. It should also lead to enhanced quality of national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories for the Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, as well as be relevant for the establishment of the database for the proposed EU Soil Monitoring Law.
To show the extent to which a carbon farming activity results in a positive climate impact, the European Commission will establish standardised baselines reflecting the standard performance of comparable activities in similar social, economic, environmental and technological circumstances and geographical locations. This type of baselines ensures objectivity and transparency, minimises compliance costs and other administrative costs, and positively recognises the action of first movers who have already engaged in carbon farming activities. However, the geographically-explicit data needed to identify and set such standardised baselines and help prioritise regions and actions for carbon farming is currently missing.
Moreover, it is important that the EU boosts sustainable carbon farming solutions by enabling a business model that financially rewards land managers for such activities, as stressed by the EU CRC Framework and the Commission’s 2021 Communication on Sustainable Carbon Cycles. The EU CRC Framework aims to ensure that financial incentives from both private and public sources are channelled towards high-quality carbon removals and nature-based solutions. However, to ensure its correct functioning, interoperable public registries and MRV protocols compliant with standards and technical rules to be set out at EU level are needed. These will ensure transparency, full traceability of carbon farming certificates, an easily accessible marketplace for these certificates, and avoid fraud risk and double counting.
Proposed activities should:
- Develop, validate and apply pilot, innovative, robust, local soil carbon monitoring systems in line with the CRC Framework proposal, able to gather the data needed for the European Commission to set out standardised baselines reflecting the standard performance of comparable activities in similar social, economic, environmental and technological circumstances and geographical locations in Europe. These systems should also allow to evaluate achievable biophysical potential of carbon storage and related co-benefits of carbon farming activities, at land management parcel-scale and for the whole European territory, and help prioritise regions and actions for carbon farming.
- Investigate and develop approaches and methodologies for soil sampling pertinent to the granular level of the monitoring, including assessment and exploitation of the technological innovation opportunities and the potential to reduce monitoring costs.
- Leverage the power of existing remote sensing tools such as those typically employed in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) control, i.e., in conjunction with spatially explicit parcel data (e.g., Land Parcel Identification System - Geospatial Application (LPIS-GSA)); and develop a structured, standardized system for understanding and managing the direct effect of carbon farming practices on soil carbon (including the practices promoted by the CAP).
- Demonstrate and where possible expand the power of digital tools and technologies (including electronic databases and geographic information systems/geographically-explicit digital map data, remote sensing, artificial intelligence and machine learning) for (decreasing the costs of) the data collection, for establishing baselines and for the monitoring of carbon removal activities.
- Deliver guidance (e.g. manuals) for policymakers and certification bodies on soil monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), data collection protocols, and baselines against which action is quantified. Such guidance should be designed within the upcoming EU CRC Framework and in consultation with the Commission's Expert Group on Carbon Removals.
- Develop and test harmonisation protocols within a distributed data management system for the integration and direct comparison of upcoming CRC data and existing spatially explicit information contained in national LULUCF inventories and other soil organic carbon datasets (such as LUCAS, and pertinent national datasets).
- Develop a framework to collect and analyse data coming from certificates (both within existing voluntary carbon markets and the upcoming CRC Framework), to define reliable ranges of carbon sequestration and outliers, and consolidate interoperable, quality-checked datasets.
- Use results of the above work to calibrate and validate modelling frameworks applicable to the monitoring methodologies mentioned above in this topic.
- Create metrics to gauge carbon sensitivity to perturbations, particularly those linked with climate change, by analysing different soil carbon fractions.
- Evaluate the permanency-related risks of release of carbon, using modelling scenarios.
- Address key uncertainties and scientific knowledge gaps that currently exist within carbon removal quantification methods, helping to develop a standardised MRV approach.
- Undertake an in-depth assessment of the market situation for carbon farming, building on existing and ongoing research, to assess the (expected) overall market impacts of carbon farming, including the potential income opportunities for farmers and other land managers, impacts on land productivity and land prices, and sensitivities over the “commodification” of carbon removals and ecosystem services, for different carbon farming activities (e.g. agroforestry, rewetting of land and other practices).
- Analyse the different channels and business strategies for the marketing of certified carbon removals, providing an overview of the current market and outlook for the next 10 years. This analysis should consider differences between marketing certified carbon removals within and outside the agri-food or forestry value chains and identify the relevant market players in each case.
- Create a network among existing carbon farming schemes across several European countries and scale up their activities by developing an interoperable digital marketplace, based on a geographically-explicit registry, that provides easier access to the carbon farming units certified by those different schemes. This registry should follow the rules set out in the CRC Framework and be consistent with Member States’ reporting in the LULUCF sector so as to enable Member States to improve their GHG inventory data. The registry should enable monetary transactions involving carbon credits, however the project(s) should not directly carry out such transactions.
The ‘carbon farming’ activities to be covered are those defined in the CRC Framework proposal. Whenever relevant, the synergies and trade-offs between carbon and nitrogen and their possible optimisation should be covered. All types of land, including forests and their above-ground biomass, where relevant, should be covered. In the case of the agricultural sector, organic farming, as an approach with potential to increase carbon sequestration in the soil, should be included.
Key information/data on soil carbon should be shared with land managers, to enable them to learn from peers and facilitate access to tailored advice and certification services to improve their soil management performance and verify the mitigation impact of their activities in view of possible certification. Given the necessity for new ideas that meet social needs, create social relationships and form new collaborations within this topic's subject, proposals should integrate social innovation.
Proposals should include a dedicated task and appropriate resources to collaborate with other relevant forthcoming projects as well as to capitalise on activities and results from on-going, relevant projects. In particular, projects should build on the preparatory work done by projects funded by the EJP SOIL programme (e.g. CarboSeq project), AI4SoilHealth, BENCHMARKS, MaRVIC, MRV4SOC, CREDIBLE, HoliSoils, CLIMB-FOREST, INFORMA, OptFor-EU, the ORCaSa project, InBestSoil, NOVASOIL, SoilValues, and the project originating from the HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-09 topic (on carbon farming in living labs), as well as work carried out by the Joint Research Centre on the establishment of baselines for the implementation of the CRC Framework.
Proposals should demonstrate a route towards open access, longevity, sustainability and interoperability of knowledge/data and outputs, and between existing databases and models, through close collaboration with the Joint Research Centre’s EU Soil Observatory (EUSO), the upcoming EU Forest Observatory and the project SoilWISE. In particular, proposals should ensure that relevant data, maps and information can potentially be available publicly through the EUSO.
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Expected results
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:
- The confidence of stakeholders (including land managers) in participating in possible carbon farming certification schemes and the attractiveness of the carbon farming business model are enhanced through better access to information and data regarding soil carbon (achievable sequestration and storage, risks of release, etc.). This should allow to improve soil management performance and mitigate the negative climate impact of activities in EU Member States and Associated Countries.
- Reliable benchmarks or baselines for soil carbon at land management parcel level across the EU are established, with a view to providing financial rewards to those farmers and forest managers/owners who go beyond the baselines within the proposed framework for Carbon Removal Certification.
- Improved decision making in the LULUCF sector at the regional or national level thanks to enhanced quality of national GHG inventories and geographically explicit soil monitoring elements that reflect action at the individual level.
- Market situation and social dimension are better integrated into EU carbon farming policy, in particular as regards the impact of carbon farming incentives on rural development, farmers’ and foresters’ incomes, competitiveness, food security and land access. Business strategies and (digital) marketplaces for carbon farming, including a registry for carbon farming credits/certificates, support EU carbon farming policy.
- Regulated EU carbon credits and environmental and financial incentives, within legal frameworks and for certified measures for carbon farming deployment strategies, specifically for foresters and agricultural land managers or owners, are supported. This should be aligned with the EU CRC Framework aiming at promoting carbon removal activities and fight greenwashing by encouraging forestry and agricultural sectors to act in this field and effectively demonstrate that carbon farming can be quantified through appropriate monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) methods.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan), Belarus (Беларусь), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Montenegro (Црна Гора), Morocco (المغرب), New Zealand (Aotearoa), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entities
Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
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
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States
- third countries associated to Horizon Europe - see list of particpating countries
Only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:
- at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State; and
- at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.
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.
Specific cases:
- Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
- Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.
- Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
- EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
- Joint Research Centre (‘JRC’)— Where provided for in the specific call conditions, applicants may include in their proposals the possible contribution of the JRC but the JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal. Applicants will indicate the contribution that the JRC could bring to the project based on the scope of the topic text. After the evaluation process, the JRC and the consortium selected for funding may come to an agreement on the specific terms of the participation of the JRC. If an agreement is found, the JRC may accede to the grant agreement as beneficiary requesting zero funding or participate as an associated partner, and would accede to the consortium as a member.
- Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members (e.g. European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. However, if the action is in practice implemented by the individual members, those members should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible.
other eligibility criteria
Proposals must apply the multi-actor approach. See definition of the multi-actor approach in the introduction to this Mission.
The following exceptions apply: subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
Additional Information
All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funders & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory annexes and supporting documents, e.g. plan for the exploitation and dissemination of the results including communication activities, etc.
The application form will have two parts:
- Part A (to be filled in directly online) contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), the summarised budget for the proposal and call-specific questions;
- Part B (to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system) contains the technical description of the project.
Annexes and supporting documents will be directly available in the submission system and must be uploaded as PDF files (or other formats allowed by the system).
The limit for a full application (Part B) is 45 pages.
Call documents
Horizon Missions 2023-2024Horizon Missions 2023-2024(2860kB)
Contact
RTD-HORIZON-EUROPE-MISSIONS@ec.europa.eu
Website
National Contact Points for Horizon Europe
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