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Call key data

Zero-pollution cities

Funding Program

Horizon Europe: Missions

Call number

HORIZON-MISS-2024-CIT-01-02

deadlines

Opening
17.09.2024

Deadline
16.01.2025 17:00

Funding rate

100%

Call budget

€ 20,000,000.00

Estimated EU contribution per project

€ 5,000,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

Applicants should propose projects that deliver better and innovative local measures against pollution through, among others, improved knowledge on the exposures of citizens to pollution and improved health impact assessments and strategies to reduce health impacts related to air, water, soil and/or noise pollution.

Call objectives

Cities are concerned by various types of pollution, including air, water, soil and noise pollution, and their negative impacts on human health and the environment. Many of these pollutants emanate from the same sources as greenhouse gas emissions being tackled in the context of the EU Mission Climate-Neutral Smart Cities, so it is clear there are potential environmental co-benefits from reducing GHG emissions. Designing effective policies to protect city dwellers from pollution depends on solid evidence as well as on cooperation and communication between and with policy makers and citizens.

Due to resource constraints, city administrations may often need to prioritise between different actions on different forms of pollution – and for this a solid risk-based evidence-base of the exposure to, impacts of and measures against pollution will allow to arrive at more informed and cost-effective local measures. These measures are often closely connected and affected by energy policy choices demonstrating the benefits of holistic approaches in for instance the planning, budgeting and assessment of costs and benefits in environmental, energy and climate policies at local level.

More informed, coherent and targeted local measures will help European cities to deliver environmental co-benefits under the EU Mission for Climate-Neutral, Smart Cities, comply with or exceed EU legislative standards for air and water quality, and supporting the delivery of environmental objectives such as the targets of the EU Zero Pollution Action Plan and commitments under the Green City Accord.

Where technological solutions are proposed, these are expected to reach up to TRL 5 by the end of the project.

In order to address these needs, individual projects must address at least two of the following areas:

  • Improved health impact assessments to highlight and attempt to monetize the (co-)benefits and socio-economic impacts of zero pollution measures, in combination with climate neutrality policies, contributing to better ex-ante cost-benefit analysis and increasing public acceptance of measures.
  • Measurement and modelling methods for more precisely assessing exposure and risk-based health impacts at regional and/or local level (should deliver results that can be communicated to the wider public as well).
  • More precise evidence on exposure, notably of vulnerable population groups, and making health impact assessments easily comparable.
  • Exploration of the effectiveness of dynamic abatement strategies by monitoring changes in pollution levels, complemented by citizen science / observations.

All projects are required to:

  • Develop methods and tools that can swiftly be deployed and used by cities and regional authorities. Once implemented they should help policy makers prioritise actions, and address social aspects of zero pollution policies,
  • Support implementation of zero pollution policies by overcoming barriers to behavioural change which natural science and evidence alone cannot overcome. New approaches to address these barriers should be explored from the angles of behavioural economics, psychology, communication and organisational behaviour, with a view to inform effective local and regional zero pollution policies.

Project(s) funded under this topic should involve at least two cities. Ideally at least one city in each project should be a city selected for the EU Mission Climate-Neutral Smart Cities and/or a city signatory to the EU Green City Accord (these can be the same city).

To increase impact and coherence, project(s) should maximise coordination and complementarity with the ‘Climate-Neutral Smart cities’ Mission platform. Collaboration with the Cities Mission Platform is essential, and projects must ensure that appropriate provisions for activities and resources aimed at enforcing this collaboration are included in the work plan of the proposal. The collaboration with the Mission Platform must be formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding to be concluded as soon as possible after the project starting date. Synergies should also be explored and, as appropriate, pursued with other relevant initiatives, such as the European Green Capital / Leaf Awards, European Urban Initiative, the Covenant of Mayors Europe and the New European Bauhaus. Work performed or underway in other Horizon funded projects should also be considered, to the extent feasible, to avoid overlaps or contradictory conclusions. Cooperation with various stakeholders is recommended, for example, with health experts to professionally assess the impact of environmental influences on human health.

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Expected results

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

  • Methods for more precisely assessing exposure to air, water, soil and/or noise pollution, health impacts and public information at regional and/or local level;
  • Methods for better assessing exposure of vulnerable groups (including due to socio-economic context) to air, water, soil and/or noise pollution at regional and/or local level, enabling more precise evidence to inform health impact assessments;
  • Improved and comparable assessment of mortality and morbidity impacts of air, water, soil and/or noise pollution at regional and/or local level;
  • Improved understanding of the role of behavioural economics, psychology and organizational behaviour to design measures oriented to lower pollution in urban environments;
  • Improved understanding of the correlation between improving environmental quality of urban spaces and human health and wellbeing;
  • Methods for determining the sources of air pollutants at urban level so that local authorities, stakeholders and citizens know the proportion of the pollutant emissions attributable to urban transport, heating etc.
  • Comparative analysis of selected successful pollution reduction/abatement strategies at local level and identify key factors underlying such successes and their replication potential.

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Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

EU Member States, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)
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

The following additional eligibility criteria apply: Proposals are required to address at least two areas listed in the scope.

Grants awarded under this topic will be linked to the following action(s): HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02-03 

Collaboration with the Cities Mission Platform is essential and projects must ensure that appropriate provisions for activities and resources aimed at enforcing this collaboration are included in the work plan of the proposal. The collaboration with the Mission Platform must be formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding to be concluded as soon as possible after the project starting date.

Additional information

Topics

Air Quality, Biodiversity & Environment, Climate & Climate Change, Water quality & management, 
Health, Social Services, Sports, 
Rural & Urban Development/Planning

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

EU Missions in Horizon Europe
RTD-HORIZON-EUROPE-MISSIONS@ec.europa.eu
Website

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