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Call key data

Living labs co-creating solutions for the restoration of ecosystems addressing implementation bottlenecks and improving resilience to risks

Funding Program

Horizon Europe

Call number

HORIZON-NATURE-2027-02-02

deadlines

Opening
13.10.2026

Deadline
14.01.2027 17:00

Funding rate

100%

Call budget

€ 60,000,000.00

Estimated EU contribution per project

€ 10,000,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

The NRR (Nature Restoration Regulation) requires Member States to put in place area-based restoration measures, including Nature-based solutions, as highlighted and recommended in both the EU Climate adaptation strategy and in the European Water Resilience Strategy. Notably measures to implement the NRR article 9 on free-flowing rivers support the objectives of the European Water Resilience Strategy to restore and protect the water cycle, and the Water Framework Directive objective of good ecological status of rivers. NRR Article 11 on the restoration of agricultural ecosystems aims inter alia at developing high-diversity landscape features.

Call objectives

Related strategies: the Vision for Agriculture and Food, the EU soil strategy for 2030, the EU Forest Strategy for 2030, the new EU bioeconomy strategy and the European Ocean Pact reflect the objectives of the NRR. The communication on integrated wildfire risk management highlights the need for more research on preventive restoration integrating wildfire prevention and post-fire recovery objectives in nature restoration activities. More science-based operational restoration approaches are needed to identify scalable solutions that overcome implementation bottlenecks, notably financing. Nature restoration can deliver major biodiversity, climate adaptation, water resilience and overall One Health benefits. However, in some contexts, restoration may also modify the suitability of habitats (for instance disease vectors and reservoir/host communities). Proposals are therefore encouraged to consider these aspects in cooperation with relevant public health and environmental authorities. Synergies with the EU Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation which supports result-based incentives for carbon farming and carbon removal activities that demonstrate co-benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services have to be developed. Living labs are expected to foster collaboration between sectors and communities through a strong place-based approach to co-design and co-create systemic solutions and to function as learning environments that enable reflection, comparison and feedback on implementation pathways, governance arrangements and enabling conditions for ecosystem restoration.

Proposals should:

  • support the set-up of three new living labs, with 8 to 15 experimental sites each, across different ecosystems, as places for co-creating, testing and demonstrating innovative solutions to restore ecosystems following three main principles: (i) co-creation with a large and balanced set of stakeholders e.g. researchers, land and water managers (including farmers and foresters) and/or owners, policy decision makers, economic actors, civil society, social partners, municipalities and regions interested in nature restoration ensuring an adequate representation of primary-sector actors, (ii) activities carried out in real-life settings and (iii) involving stakeholders (including practitioners) at all stages of development;
  • cover different geographical regions or climate zones and at least three different EU Member States and/or Associated Countries, including sites in outermost regions; address gender dimension; establish a work plan of activities to be developed during the project lifetime, ensuring the co-design, co-development, and co-implementation of innovative and scalable solutions and describing the rationale for cooperation across the living labs and among the stakeholders within the living labs;
  • act as real-life policy experimentation environments, enabling the testing of regulatory, financial and governance innovations. Proposals should ensure the active involvement of competent public authorities (e.g. ministries, agencies, regional or local administrations) and establish feedback mechanisms to inform policy-making;
  • assess the ecosystem conditions (baselines), anticipate restoration trajectories and establish sustainable monitoring mechanisms to track progress towards the objectives, which should correspond to the EU legislation where relevant;
  • identify pertinent bottlenecks to the mainstreaming and upscaling of the implementation of nature restoration activities, such as financing, economic, regulatory or scientific knowledge issues, permitting, risk management, land tenure and access, social engagement, governance or technical issues, skills and trainings; explore their causes including behavioural and cultural factors; and propose solutions to address them; assess the feasibility, replicability, effectiveness, efficiency and benefits of identified solutions, and their capacity to ensure that the results of restoration are maintained over time;
  • establish and use harmonised Key Performance Indicators and MRV (measurement, reporting, verification) protocols compatible with the NRR and the European Water Resilience Strategy and develop integrated impact assessment frameworks capturing environmental, social, economic and governance dimensions, including long-term transformation effects and where relevant One Health indicators;
  • identify sites demonstrating exemplary solutions for nature restoration, to be used as lighthouses for training, peer-to-peer learning, and communication;
  • define sustainability pathways, governance structures and business models ensuring their continuation beyond the project duration.

Proposals should address Area A: building risk-resilience with restoration or Area B: developing effective and viable restoration practices in agriculture and forestry. The area (A or B) should be clearly indicated on the application.

Under Area A, proposals should demonstrate causality between restoration activities and improved, nature-based disaster risk reduction and resilience, notably to extreme weather events. At least one living lab should address water resilience against floods and droughts, through restoration of the natural connectivity of rivers and the water retention capacity and natural functions of floodplains including for aquifer recharge, while engaging with freshwater-related sectors, addressing specific implementation gaps and/or bottlenecks to contribute to the objectives of free-flowing rivers and good ecological status. Proposals addressing wetland, floodplain, riparian or water-retention measures are encouraged to consider potential health-related trade-offs, including vector habitat suitability, in cooperation with competent authorities, including public health. At least one living lab should address fire risk management in agriculture and forestry, with cost-benefit analysis and avoided loss and damages assessments, while engaging with landowners, managers, insurances, emergency services and relevant authorities. Proposals should address post-disaster ecosystem restoration, encompassing implementation bottlenecks alongside recovery processes.

Under Area B, proposals should focus on restoration through biodiversity-friendly farming and forestry systems, including agroecological approaches such as agroforestry or grazing-based grassland systems, organic farming and systems providing for high diversity landscape features or environmental set-aside. Sites should be selected along a gradient of intensity of practises and evaluate restoration challenges from areas starting conversion processes to areas with anteriority in recognised “biodiversity-friendly” systems. Proposals should measure their potential to achieve restoration objectives using MRV protocols. At least one living lab should develop, test and validate tools to strengthen in-situ conservation of genetic resources and sustainable use of agro-biodiversity and/or forest biodiversity. Focus should be on developing decentralised, farmer- and forester-informed data systems and strategies to equip practitioners with evidence-based insights for biodiversity selection and integration for specific uses and environments. Additionally, standard protocols for local genetic resource maintenance and exchange should be developed. At least one of the living labs should integrate a strong focus on financing restoration. Monitoring and verification methods to assess the biodiversity impacts of carbon farming practices, notably in the context of the CRCF framework, should be developed. Projects should also explore, where relevant, how such methods may interact with biodiversity support schemes, including emerging nature credit mechanisms.

Proposals should ensure complementarities and avoid duplications with the activities of relevant EU-funded projects and initiatives, including the Agroecology Partnership, the Forest Partnershio, the EU Mission Soil, the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, and should establish cooperation with the living labs established under those instruments as relevant.

Concrete efforts should be made to ensure that the data produced in the context of the funded projects is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable), particularly for real-time data feeds, exploring workflows that can provide “FAIR-by-design” data, i.e., data that is FAIR from its generation. Possibilities offered by the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) to store and give access to research data should be considered. A citizen science approach could be appropriate for this action to produce, collect and analyse data.

Living labs are expected to dedicate resources for networking activities with other living labs, under the lead of the CSA that will be supported under the topic HORIZON-NATURE-2027-02-03: Networking to scale up living labs for nature restoration solutions and to address bottlenecks to implementation.

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, across all phases of the living lab process, including co-design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, with particular attention to behavioural change, social acceptance, participatory governance and conflict mediation, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Proposals must apply the multi-actor approach involving stakeholders as indicated under (i), first item of the scope.

Financial support to third parties (FSTP) to facilitate active involvement of small actors (e.g. land managers, SMEs or civil society) in one or more of the living labs of a project, can be provided through calls. A maximum of 30% of the proposed budget should be allocated to this purpose.

In order to increase synergies and the impact of the projects, all proposals selected for funding should ensure close cooperation with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD) and its Science Service, including participating in answering science to policy requests.

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Expected results

Proposals are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

  • stakeholders are empowered to co-create, deploy and replicate viable ecosystem restoration measures leading to their wider uptake, with solutions to address implementation bottlenecks and financing issues;
  • competent authorities in charge of implementing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) can design and reuse effective deployment frameworks, informed by evidence and lessons generated through living labs across different contexts;
  • social, economic and environmental co-benefits, risks and trade-offs of nature restoration activities are demonstrated, addressed and made explicit to support informed decision-making and scaling, including, where appropriate, potential One Health aspects.

Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

Candidate Countries, EEA - European Economic Area, EU Member States, Eastern Partnership, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)
Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Morocco (المغرب), Switzerland (Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), 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; Albania, Arab Republic of Egypt, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Republic of Korea, Serbia, Switzerland, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom;
  • the following low- and middle-income countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic), Congo (Republic), Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt (Arab Republic), El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic), Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea (Democratic People's Republic), Kyrgyz Republic, Lao (People’s Democratic Republic), Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Micronesia (Federated States), Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Pakistan, Palau, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sudan, Suriname, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic), Vietnam, Yemen Republic, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Legal entities which are established in countries not listed above will be eligible for funding if provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority.

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.

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, 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.

As affiliated entities do not sign the grant agreement, they do not count towards the minimum eligibility criteria for consortium composition (if any).

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 specific call/topic 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.

International organisations — 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/topic 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 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 the 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

Administration & Governance, Institutional Capacity & Cooperation, 
Agriculture & Forestry, Fishery, Food, Soil quality, 
Air Quality, Biodiversity & Environment, Climate & Climate Change, Water quality & management, 
Circular Economy, Natural Resources, 
Disaster Prevention, Resilience, Risk Management

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.

Applications must include a plan for the exploitation and dissemination of results including communication activities, unless provided otherwise in the specific call/topic conditions. The plan is not required for applications at the first stage of two-stage procedures. If the expected exploitation of the results entails developing, creating, manufacturing and marketing a product or process, or in creating and providing a service, the plan must include a strategy for such exploitation. If the plan provides for exploitation of the results primarily in non-associated third countries, the applicants must explain how that exploitation is to be considered in the EU’s interest.

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.

The proposals must apply the multi-actor approach. See definition of the multi-actor approach in this work programme part.

To ensure a balanced portfolio, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to two proposals highest ranked within the research field A, and two proposals highest ranked within the research field B, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.

Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 60 000.

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).

Call documents

Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 Horizontal ActivitiesHorizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 Horizontal Activities(1262kB)

Contact

National Contact Points for Horizon Europe
Website

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