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Call key data
Cultural Strategies for Peace: culture and creativity as catalysts for conflict prevention and post-conflict reconciliation
Funding Program
Horizon Europe: Cluster 2 - Culture, Creativity and Inclusive society
Call number
HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-HERITAGE-07
deadlines
Opening
15.05.2025
Deadline
16.09.2025 17:00
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 12,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
zwischen € 3.000.000,00 und € 4.000.000,00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
Rapidly evolving geopolitical dynamics place the EU amid escalating conflicts and emergent crises, requiring an innovative approach to security frameworks, foreign policy, and peacebuilding strategies. R&I actions can develop groundbreaking solutions for the future, fostering innovative approaches to security and foreign policy.
Call objectives
Integrating culture, including cultural heritage and the arts, into these frameworks could contribute to long term peace and stability by preserving community identity and history, enhancing communities’ preparedness to crises, facilitating dialogue, reconstructive learning, reconciliation, and social cohesion. International cultural relations need to adapt to contemporary and future challenges by leveraging innovative strategic approaches to culture to facilitate dialogue, promote mutual understanding, and address socio-cultural disparities fuelling conflicts. The arts and culture offer unique avenues for expression, communication, and trust, transcending socio-political barriers and fostering non-violent strategies for social change, while supporting the preparedness of citizens in case of major disruptions.
Addressing the innovative role of culture in conflict prevention, security, preparedness, resilience, and post conflict reconciliation calls for a fully interdisciplinary approach, drawing from a rich variety of disciplines.
Since 2016, the EU has established a policy framework for international cultural relations heading towards a comprehensive strategy and initiating pilot projects, preparatory actions, and flagship initiatives alongside numerous ground projects. The European External Action Service Concept and the Council Conclusions on the EU approach to cultural heritage in conflicts and crises (2021) emphasize integrating cultural heritage protection into broader security and peacebuilding frameworks. Proposals should map relevant actions and initiatives led by European institutions, international organisations, individual States, and civil society organisations in Member States and Associated Countries, including those from partnerships in international cultural relations. Analysing these initiatives will build an empirical knowledge base, serving as models and inspiration, and provide insights into different approaches under various circumstances, enhancing understanding of what works best for specific purposes, as well as identifying gaps.
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Expected effects and impacts
To pursue the expected outcomes, proposals might, by way of example:
- Identify successful approaches to integrating cultural heritage as a strategic asset into foreign policy and security frameworks. Explore the potential of cultural heritage as common ground for conflicting parties, contributing to social fabric reconstruction and long-term stability in conflict-affected regions. Examine intangible cultural heritage and traditional knowledge as sources for peacebuilding strategies, fostering people-to-people connectivity, cooperation, and trust.
- Explore strategies and approaches at the intersection of art and culture, emergency management, and community resilience, with a view to increase preparedness before, during and after crises.
- Collect and analyse case studies of peacebuilding initiatives involving cultural and creative expressions and the arts, including bottom-up practices.
- Analyse current policies to identify gaps and opportunities for integrating culture and peacebuilding into security and development frameworks. Develop policy guidelines and frameworks to help policymakers incorporate cultural strategies into peacekeeping, security and social development agendas.
- Explore digital technologies for enhancing cultural exchange and dialogue in peacebuilding. Explore the imaginaries, narratives, and metaphors currently prevalent in the AI sector, and consider how the development of AI systems could be enhanced to better support cultural diversity, intercultural understanding, and ‘digital humanism’ to promote peace, safety, and fairness.
- Develop metrics for evaluating the impact of cultural initiatives on peacebuilding, preparedness, and conflict resolution. Conduct empirical studies to measure long-term benefits of these programmes on economic stability, social cohesion, and well-being in conflict-affected areas.
- Investigate how culture can be manipulated, instrumentalised and exploited to provoke conflict, including the tactical use of cultural identity and cultural appropriation to incite tensions. Investigate how cultural heritage of troubled pasts can be approached, providing new insights on how co-existence narratives of the past can contribute to reconciliation, reconstructive learning, and mutual understanding. In this respect, complementarities with topic HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-HERITAGE-08 might be sought.
- Collect and analyse good practices related to leveraging cultural heritage, culture, and creativity to address societal challenges such as fragmentation, polarisation, rising extremism, migration, the refugee crisis, and regional and local tensions.
- Investigate how intersectional factors such as gender, age, citizenship, and socioeconomic status affect participation in and outcomes of cultural peacebuilding initiatives. Assess the differential impacts on various demographic groups and develop strategies for inclusivity. Evaluate the role of cultural institutions and practices in restorative and transformative justice.
- Conduct longitudinal studies to assess long-term effects of cultural interventions on community resilience, social cohesion, and economic recovery in post-conflict regions. Identify key determinants of sustainability of cultural peacebuilding efforts and consolidate understanding of how to sustain peace once achieved.
- Investigate the link between culture, cultural heritage, and sustainable economy, examining their effects on post-conflict recovery, reconstruction and sustainable peace. Conflicts damage local economies, leading to exploitation of natural and cultural heritage for sustenance. These activities, often illegal, may generate quick profits but undermine long-term economic stability.
- Establish sustainable collaboration mechanisms to ensure continuous engagement among key stakeholders, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, including in diplomacy, promoting robust and long-lasting exchange and cooperation.
International cooperation, as well as synergies with the Jean Monnet project HER-UKR: Challenges and opportunities for EU heritage diplomacy in Ukraine are encouraged.
The Commission encourages projects funded under this topic to seek complementarities for stronger impact. Proposals should, to the extent appropriate, build on existing knowledge, activities, and networks, notably the ones funded by the European Union, in particular under the Horizon Europe framework programme.
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Expected results
Projects should contribute to all the following expected outcomes:
- Organisations active in diplomacy, culture, research (including SSH disciplines), and education gain insights into the strategic importance of culture, including cultural heritage and the arts, in the contemporary geopolitical context. They understand better how culture can be manipulated, instrumentalised, and even destroyed, to fuel conflict, and how culture, the arts, and tangible and intangible cultural heritage contribute to conflict prevention, reconciliation, preparedness, security and sustainable peace.
- Public authorities, international organisations, NGOs, and society benefit from the empirical knowledge base derived from extensive case study collection, analysis, and evaluation, and from the identification of patterns and best practices, offering adaptable models for integrating culture into sustainable peacebuilding, conflict prevention, preparedness and post-conflict reconciliation.
- Policymakers receive evidence-based recommendations and guidelines for innovative, sustainable peacebuilding strategies working with culture and aligned with EU principles and values.
- Mechanisms fostering ongoing collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers are established, to ensure sustained progress in culture for security, foreign policy, and sustainable peace, and to support continuous advancement and integration of knowledge beyond the projects’ conclusion.
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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), Canada, Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Montenegro (Црна Гора), New Zealand (Aotearoa), 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, 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
- 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.
other eligibility criteria
Specific cases:
- 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 (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 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.
- Legal entities created under EU law (EU bodies) including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
- International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. International organisations with headquarters in a Member State or Associated Country are eligible to receive funding for ‘Training and mobility’ actions or when provided for in the specific call/topic conditions. Other international organisations are not eligible to receive funding, unless provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority.
- 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.
- EU restrictive measures — Entities subject to EU restrictive measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) as well as Article 75 TFEU, are not eligible to participate in any capacity, including as beneficiaries, affiliated entities, associated partners, third parties giving in-kind contributions, subcontractors or recipients of financial support to third parties (if any).
- Legal entities established in Russia, Belarus, or in non-government controlled territories of Ukraine — Given the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the involvement of Belarus, there is currently no appropriate context allowing the implementation of the actions foreseen in this programme with legal entities established in Russia, Belarus, or in non-government controlled territories of Ukraine. Therefore, even where such entities are not subject to EU restrictive measures, such legal entities are not eligible to participate in any capacity. This includes participation as beneficiaries, affiliated entities, associated partners, third parties giving in-kind contributions, subcontractors or recipients of financial support to third parties (if any). Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis for justified reasons.
With specific regard to measures addressed to Russia, following the adoption of the Council Regulation (EU) 2024/1745 of 24 June 2024 (amending Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 of 31 July 2014) concerning restrictive measures in view of Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine, legal entities established outside Russia but whose proprietary rights are directly or indirectly owned for more than 50% by a legal person, entity or body established in Russia are also not eligible to participate in any capacity. - Measures for the protection of the Union budget against breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary — Following the Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/2506, as of 16 December 2022, no legal commitments can be entered into with Hungarian public interest trusts established under the Hungarian Act IX of 2021 or any entity they maintain. Affected entities may continue to apply to calls for proposals and can participate without receiving EU funding, as associated partners, if allowed by the call conditions. However, as long as the Council measures are not lifted, such entities are not eligible to participate in any funded role (beneficiaries, affiliated entities, subcontractors, recipients of financial support to third parties, etc.).In case of multi-beneficiary grant calls, applicants will be invited to remove or replace that entity in any funded role and/or to change its status into associated partner. Tasks and budget may be redistributed accordingly.
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
Applications 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.
Applications must be submitted using the forms provided inside the electronic submission system (not the templates available on the topic page, which are only for information). The structure and presentation must correspond to the instructions given in the forms.
Applications must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory annexes and supporting documents.
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 50 pages.
Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025). It is mandatory to submit a detailed budget table using the template available in the Submission system.
Call documents
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Cluster 2 - Culture, Creativity and Inclusive SocietyHorizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Cluster 2 - Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society(1200kB)
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