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Call key data
Raising awareness of and building capacity for the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
Funding Program
Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme
Call number
CERV-2026-CHAR-LITI-CHARTER
deadlines
Opening
20.05.2026
Deadline
15.09.2026 17:00
Call budget
€ 9,500,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
min. € 75,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
This call for proposals will promote the founding rights and values of the Union by building primarily civil society organisations’ awareness on and capacity to apply the Charter and to carry out activities to ensure that the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter are upheld. This call for proposals also aims to support projects which contribute to ensuring an open, safe and enabling civic space by providing support and protection to civil society organisations, and those focusing on strategic litigation in these areas. The call focuses on raising awareness of and building capacity for the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Call objectives
Objectives:
- Protect, promote and raise awareness of fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter by providing financial support to civil society organisations active at local, regional, national and transnational level. These organisations play a key role in promoting and cultivating those rights, thereby strengthening the protection and promotion of Union values and respect for the rule of law and contributing to building a more democratic Union, democratic dialogue, transparency and good governance.
- The main objectives of these priorities are 1) to build the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) and their awareness of the Charter and support them in carrying out activities to ensure that the Charter is upheld, and 2) to support the objectives of a thriving, safe and enabling civic space, by strengthening the monitoring of civic space and reinforcing the protection of civil society actors, in particular those facing restrictions, threats or intimidation.
- As part of this priority, the call will also focus on building capacity of these actors on the enforcement and strategic litigation of fundamental rights.
- This call for proposals will support several EU policy initiatives, in particular the 2020 Strategy to strengthen the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the EU (the Charter strategy) and the annual Charter Reports, the EU Strategy for Civil Society and the 2023 Recommendation on civic participation, with regards to the protection and promotion of a thriving civic space in the EU.
The Charter strategy underlines the importance of strengthening the application of the Charter through awareness raising and capacity building initiatives. Accordingly, projects under this priority are intended to raise the fundamental rights knowledge of relevant actors. While building on the central role of civil society organisations and human rights defenders, funded projects could involve national, regional and local authorities as partners (co-applicants), with the aim of supporting joint capacity building and awareness raising efforts.
The projects funded under this priority should address the capacity building and awareness raising needs on the Charter. In particular, relevant projects should focus on raising awareness and building capacity on at least one of the following topics: the Charter in general and/or the contents of an individual Charter right or several of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter; the Charter’s scope of application ; the remedies available in cases of breaches of the Charter rights. In accordance with its Article 51, the Charter is applicable to Member States only when they are implementing EU law. Given the specific scope of application of this instrument, unlike that of international human rights agreements, and considering the increasing number of references to the Charter in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, there is a specific need to promote an understanding of when the Charter applies, i.e. when EU law is being implemented, and of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter.
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Expected effects and impacts
- Increased awareness of and capacity to apply the Charter and the fundamental rights it enshrines by CSOs, NHRIs, equality bodies, ombuds institutions, other human rights defenders, and Member State authorities at national, regional and local level;
- Increased prevention of fundamental rights breaches;
- Improved knowledge of available redress mechanisms under national and EU law and how to make the best use of them for the benefit of rights holders;
- Improved cooperation on fundamental rights issues among CSOs, NHRIs, equality bodies, ombuds institutions, other human rights defenders and Member State authorities at national, regional and local level.
Expected results
The following activities can be covered:
- Awareness raising and capacity building activities aiming to increase the knowledge of civil society organisations in particular, but also human rights defenders, and other key partners, on the use of the Charter, especially on its scope of application, the fundamental rights it contains and the remedies available in cases of breaches.
Activities could also contain the following elements:
- Facilitating cooperation between civil society organisations and other key actors on enforcing the Charter, such as NHRIs, equality bodies, Ombuds institutions and Member State authorities (at national, regional and local level);
- Training and train-the-trainer activities for professionals (such as experts, lawyers and legal advisers, communicators, policy and advocacy advisers, professionals from national, regional and local authorities), including through operational guidance and learning tools;
- Mutual learning, exchange of good practices, development of working and learning methods, including mentoring programmes that may be transferable to other countries;
- Development of methods for fundamental rights impact assessments and for stakeholder consultation;
- Analytical activities, such as sex-disaggregated data collection and research, and the creation of tools or databases on fundamental rights (e.g. databases of jurisprudence);
- Communication activities, including dissemination of information and awareness raising about the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter and redress mechanisms, relevant to the priorities of the call.
The projects’ design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation are expected to mainstream fundamental rights as enshrined in the Charter, including freedom of expression, (gender) equality and non-discrimination, rights of the child, or right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial.
The proposal should explain how and why specific rights enshrined in the Charter need to be mainstreamed in relation to the goals pursued in the project. The assessment should be aligned with the project’s scope and tailored to its target group. It should include a reflection on the activities’ potential impacts on fundamental rights, as relevant.
The proposals are expected to clarify how they intend to address any unintended negative effects of the intervention on e.g. specific groups at risk of discrimination, with a particular attention to the underrepresented sex or to children (do no harm approach).
Monitoring and evaluation frameworks should include indicators that facilitate tracking the project’s contribution to the fundamental rights mainstreamed in the proposal. Contributions to fundamental rights mainstreaming should be realistic and proportionate to the project’s scope and size.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
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
No
Project Partnership
In order to be eligible the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- For lead applicants (i.e., the “Coordinator”): be non-profit legal entities (public or private bodies)
- For co-applicants: be non-profit or for profit legal entities (public or private bodies). Organisations which are for profit may apply only in partnership with private non-profit organisations
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
Other eligibility conditions:
- Activities must take place in any of the eligible countries (EU Member States);
- The EU grant applied for cannot be lower than EUR 75 000;
- The lead applicant (i.e. Coordinator) cannot submit more than one application under this call for proposals, across all topics/priorities. In case of multiple proposals submitted by the same lead applicant, all the proposals will be rejected and will not be evaluated further;
- The project can be either national or transnational; the application may involve one or more organisations (lead applicant and co-applicants). Transnational projects are particularly encouraged;
- Financial support to third parties is not allowed.
other eligibility criteria
Specific cases:
- Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of selfemployed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).
- International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
- 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 for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.
- EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.
- Programme Contact Points are eligible as coordinator or beneficiary in this call, if they have procedures to segregate the project management and the information provision functions and if they are able to demonstrate cost separation (i.e. that their project grants do not cover any costs which are covered by their other grant). This requires the following:
- use of analytical accounting which allows for a cost accounting management with cost allocation keys and cost accounting codes AND application of these keys and codes to identify and separate the costs (i.e. to allocate them to either one of the two grants)
- recording of all real costs incurred for the activities that are covered by the two grants (including the indirect costs)
- allocation of the costs in a way that leads to a fair, objective and realistic result
- Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality'. Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible).
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)
project duration
between 12 and 24 months
Additional Information
Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System (NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).
Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:
- Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
- Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
- Part C (KPI tool) — contains additional project data regarding the project’s contribution to EU programme key performance indicators (to be filled in directly online; all sections to be completed)
- Supporting documents (templates to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded):
- CVs (standard) of core project team
- activity reports of last year (n/a for newly established organisations)
- list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B) (n/a for newly established organisations)
- For any participant organisation implementing activities involving children (persons under the age of 18):
- Private entities must provide their child protection policy (CPP) covering the four areas described in the Keeping Children Safe Child Safeguarding Standards.
- Public entities must provide a declaration of honour (template available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System –completed and attached to the Application) or their child protection policy (CPP), if any (see section 6 Ethics and EU values).
Proposals are limited to maximum 45 pages (Part B).
Call documents
Contact
+43 1 531 15–202907
ernst.holzinger@bka.gv.at
Website
CERV Contact Points 2021-2027
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