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Call key data
Science for successful, high-integrity voluntary climate initiatives
Call number
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D1-01-05
deadlines
Opening
13.12.2022
Deadline
18.04.2023 17:00
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 5,500,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
€ 5,500,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
Call objectives
To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement global GHG emissions should reach “net-zero” by mid-century and be halved by 2030 compared to current levels. This requires immediate, rapid and large-scale emissions reductions across all sectors of the economy. Voluntary initiatives and pledges by non-state actors, such as the private sector, financial institutions, civil society, cities and subnational authorities could help fill the gap, mobilise finance and accelerate the transformation process. However, the integrity-related concerns of these actions must first be overcome and require better understanding of the actual climate impacts and other potential side-effects.
This action should advance the knowledge about the role of voluntary initiatives in achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal, including consistency and interactions with global/national government commitments, regulated markets and between each other. It should address barriers and weaknesses associated with voluntary initiatives, such as inconsistency of definitions and claims (e.g. net-zero, carbon positive, carbon negative, climate neutral, etc.), their environmental integrity, fragmentation, complexity, poor measurement, verification and reporting practices as well as concerns related to additionality, double counting, transparency, governance, and accounting of the wider social and ecological consequences.
The action should evaluate the role of compensation schemes in voluntary climate initiatives, and the implications for transition pathways. To this end, it should improve the understanding of the impacts of carbon offsets, assess their risks and limitations, investigate how offsets affect and interact with other emission abatement options, and under which conditions they could accelerate cost-effective mitigation. It should analyse the scientific integrity of various existing offsetting schemes, identify their strengths and weaknesses and develop clear scientific guidance about their proper use to safeguard climate-positive outcomes. This should include identification of synergies and avoidance of trade-offs with other policy objectives, such as biodiversity related ones, and full respect of the “do no significant harm” principle. Any promotion of offsetting schemes is out of scope of this call.
The action should also explore and assess different options for improved monitoring, reporting and verification of various voluntary climate initiatives, including through leveraging of satellite-based earth observation such as Copernicus/ Galileo/EGNOS.
Finally, it should enhance the modelling tools and integrated assessment frameworks to better integrate voluntary climate initiatives into transition pathway analysis and to address the specific needs of non-state actors (but not necessarily with a single model/tool).
Co-creation with various stakeholders in the private and public sectors, including actors from developing countries, is expected under this action to ensure that the outcomes produced remain relevant for the end-users.
Actions should envisage clustering activities with other relevant ongoing and selected projects for cross-projects cooperation and exchange of results, including as participation in joint meetings and communication events.
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Expected results
Projects results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Recommendations, guidance and capacity building to help governments and non-state actors ensure high integrity in voluntary climate change mitigation initiatives through enhanced evaluation, design, implementation and monitoring.
- Helping to translate scientific consensus and knowledge (e.g. IPCC reports) and government commitments (e.g. under the Paris Agreement), into meaningful corporate and other non-state climate strategies and actions.
- Contribution to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal through support to development and scaling up of high-quality voluntary initiatives that deliver genuine climate benefits in Europe and globally.
- Development of a standardised framework for the assessment of carbon offsetting schemes.
- Reducing risks of greenwashing, including in the use of offsets, and also of technology-lock-ins.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), 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), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entities
EU Body, Education and training institution, International organization, Natural Person, 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
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).
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.
Beneficiaries will be subject to the following additional obligations regarding open science practices: Open access to any new modules, models or tools developed from scratch or substantially improved with the use of EU funding under the action must be ensured through documentation, availability of model code and input data developed under the action.
Call documents
HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 5, Destination 1HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 5, Destination 1(664kB)
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