This call is relevant for cities and regions seeking to explore solutions for managing land and sea use competition in a sustainable and equitable way. A truly sustainable and circular bioeconomy depends on balancing the need for biomass with the imperative to preserve and restore biodiversity and maintain healthy ecosystems.

At the same time, it must ensure the availability of biomass to meet societal demands for food, materials, and energy that support human well-being. The objective of this call is to develop integrated tools and approaches that help policymakers design holistic and coherent policy packages in order to anticipate and address potential conflicts in land and sea use. These tools must enable informed decisions on how to align environmental, economic, and social objectives with the sustainable supply of biomass.

Any type of organisation can apply for Horizon Europe funding as long as they have the operational and financial capacity to carry out the tasks that they propose. For most calls for proposals, you must apply as a team of at least 3 partner organisations from 3 different EU or associated countries. At least one of the 3 partners must be from an EU country. In addition to these 3 partners, organisations from other countries might be able to join your consortium.

More information in the Horizon Europe programme guide. Further details or exceptions are listed on the pages of the call topics in the Funding & tenders portal.

Proposals should: develop tools (including methodologies and processes) for national and regional policyand decision-makers to carry out integrated bioeconomy land and sea assessments, with the objective to minimize the ‘land/sea footprint’ and provide different land and sea biomass uses solutions, considering their feasibility, viability, and societal desirability (e.g. region specific).

The assessment shall consider natural, semi-natural, and managed (agricultural and forestry, fisheries and aquaculture) ecosystems and the impacts of land/sea use on ecosystem conditions, biodiversity and supply of ecosystem services and interlinkages, considering the System of Environmental Economic Accounting set of indicators and the JRC's EU-wide ecosystem condition assessment; assess and develop integrated and coherent policy objectives to improve land and sea biomass use in national and regional contexts, considering the inclusive approaches to developing a wide range of policy narratives (e.g. objectives) pursued by the JRC in the EU-level assessment (i.e. IBLUA).

The different narratives described qualitatively will be quantitatively represented (e.g. reporting relevant social, economic and environmental indicators) in the deliberation tool, which should be able to capture different configurations of land and sea and biomass use, including dietary needs, energy uses, bio-based products expansion, and carbon farming; considering the challenges to land/sea ownership (e.g. private vs public) and the options stem from the tool to resolve them; demonstrate how the deliberation tool could be implemented in a network of regions covering different socio-economic situations and climate/ecological zones in the EU and associated countries to improve just and sustainable land/sea management, food security and circular biomass uses.

The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 9.00 million. The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of around EUR 4.50 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.

1. EC publishes calls for proposals on the funding and tenders portal
2. The call is open for an usual period of ca. 5 months where applicants can submit they proposal
3. Proposals can be single or two-stage application processes. A single stage application process requires the filling in of a structured proposal of max. 45 pages including objectives and innovation approach (excellence), tangible impacts that can be achieved through the project (impact) and the project planning and tasks (quality). If a two stage, the aforementioned would be the second stage application while the first is a simplified proposal of max 10 pages including only excellence and impact sections. These documents are to be uploaded to the portal in pdf format alongside filling in the respective parts of the portal with administrative information on the beneficiares, affiliated entities or others. All participants in a project need to possess a Partipant Identification Code (i.e. PIC number, a 9-digit number registered on ECAS). For more information, please see the work programme and the call documents.
4. Proposal submitted within the deadline will be evaluated by experts against evaluation criteria.
5. Winning proposals will be invited for signing a grant agreement with the EC.

Opening: 06 May 2025
 

Deadline: 24 Sep 2025