Call: Pre-commercial procurement on soil decontamination

1. Excellent Science
2. Industrial Leadership
3. Societal Challenges

Specific objectives:

• to achieve a resource – and water - efficient and climate change resilient economy and society,
• the protection and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems, and
• a sustainable supply and use of raw materials, in order to meet the needs of a growing global population within the sustainable limits of the planet's natural resources and eco-systems.

The 20th century's era of seemingly plentiful and cheap resources is coming to an end. The ability of the economy to adapt and become more climate change resilient, resource efficient and at the same time remain competitive depends on high levels of eco-innovation, of a societal, economic, organisational and technological nature. With the global market for eco-innovation worth around 1 trillion € per annum and expected to triple by 2030, eco-innovation represents a major opportunity to boost competitiveness and job creation in European economies.

To ensure EU added value and given the transnational and global nature of the climate and the environment, their scale and complexity, and the international dimension of the raw materials supply chain, activities have to be carried out at the Union level and beyond. Reducing resource use and environmental impacts, whilst increasing competitiveness, will require a decisive societal and technological transition to an economy based on a sustainable relationship between nature and human well-being. Innovation in these fields will provide opportunities for growth and jobs, as well as innovative options involving science, technology including of ICT, the economy, society, policy and governance.

Research and innovation will cover the following broad lines of activities:

• Fighting and adapting to climate change
• Protecting the environment, sustainably managing natural resources, water, biodiversity and ecosystems
• Ensuring the sustainable supply of non-energy and non-agricultural raw materials
• Enabling the transition towards a green economy and society through eco-innovation
• Developing comprehensive and sustained global environmental observation and information systems
• Cultural heritage

The call Greening the economy consists of 29 topics addressing the priority areas of climate services, moving towards a low-carbon Europe, nature-based solutions for territorial resilience, water, raw materials, Earth observation and cultural heritage forsustainable growth. All activities funded under this call should as far as possible use data resulting from or made available through different initiatives of the European Commission. The innovative element is the opportunity to use the tools Pilot on Open Research Data which aims to improve and maximise access to and re-use of research data generated by projects OR  Data Management Plans (DMPs) detailing what data the project will generate, whether and how it will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved.

Specific topics for the calls:

• Exploiting the added value of climate services
• Integrated European regional modelling and climate prediction system
• Climate services market research
• Towards a robust and comprehensive greenhouse gas verification system
• A 1.5 million year look into the past for improving climate predictions
• Pathways towards the decarbonisation and resilience of the European economy in the timeframe 2030-2050 and beyond
• Coordinating and supporting research and innovation actions on the decarbonisation of the EU economy
• Large-scale demonstrators on nature-based solutions for hydro-meteorological risk reduction
• Operationalising insurance value of ecosystems
• Multi-stakeholder dialogue platform to promote innovation with nature to address societal challenges
• Supporting international cooperation activities on water
• Novel in-situ observation systems
• Coordination of citizens' observatories initiatives
• European data hub of the GEOSS information system
• Cultural heritage as a driver for sustainable growth
• Innovative financing, business and governance models for adaptive re-use of cultural heritage
• Support to confirmed Presidency events (conferences) – Malta, United Kingdom, Estonia
• Support to confirmed Presidency event (conference) in Slovakia
• Macro-economic and societal benefits from creating new markets in a circular economy
• Pre-commercial procurement on soil decontamination
• Preparing for pre-commercial procurement (PCP) and/or public procurement of innovative solutions (PPI) in support of climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials
• Transformations to sustainability
• Framework Partnership Agreement supporting Joint Actions towards a sustainable green economy in Europe and beyond

Soil contamination is typically caused by industrial activity, mining and smelting practices, agricultural chemicals or improper disposal of waste and is increasingly becoming a very serious environmental and health problem. Member States are making efforts to establish national decontamination/remediation strategies which are generally very costly. It is therefore crucial for public authorities to be able to identify the most fit-for-purpose and cost-effective innovative solutions. The challenge is to address the lack of public demand driven innovation in the soil decontamination sector in Europe. This is needed to close the gap between supply and demand for innovative solutions. Pre-commercial procurement (PCP) has the potential to be an effective demand side innovation action 'par excellence'. PCP enables a buyers' group (consortia of procurers) to procure research and development to create innovative solutions, speed up the time-to-market and provide best value for money.

At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other. Furthermore, there must be a minimum of two legal entities which are ‘public procurers’ from two different EU Member States or Horizon 2020 associated countries. Both legal entities must be independent of each other.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of around 5 million € would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The funding rate for Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) (SC5-26-2017) actions is limited to 90% of the total eligible costs (PCP is procurement of R&D services) to leverage co-financing from the procurers.

Link to the National Contact Point Finder.