Deadline: 24-Jan-23
The European Commission (EC) is seeking proposals for Designs, materials and solutions to improve resilience, preparedness & responsiveness of the built environment for climate adaptation.
Scope
The proposal should:
- Deliver innovative designs, materials and solutions to improve resilience and climate proofing of the built environment (in particular new and existing buildings) in a cost-effective and reliable manner.
- Ensure the proposed solutions cover a broad spectrum of natural risks and disasters, for instance natural disruptive events such as earthquakes, floods, heat waves, with a particular focus on extreme climatic events.
- Ensure the proposed solutions make use of natural, easy to manage, as well as advanced, evolutive materials and technologies that help combat the effects of global warming (increased cooling demand, heat island effects, etc.) and result in increased durability, resilience and adaptability of buildings and infrastructures, including their foundations.
- Consider social innovation where relevant, notably as new tools, ideas and methods leading to active citizen engagement and resilience, and as drivers of social change, social ownership, and new social practices.
- Develop and deploy digital and interoperable tools for monitoring, detection of, and response to critical situations (e.g. evacuation of people and first responders).
- Rely, where relevant, on self-sensing and adaptable materials, and materials with embedded sensors and actuators.
- Include, as part of the proposed solutions, built environment concepts that are self-sustained for a certain period of time – including off-grid electricity supply, green infrastructure and water purification and / or rain water provision in buildings.
- Where relevant, investigate whether and how the proposed approaches could apply to cultural heritage buildings across different typologies and geographic conditions, also including innovations in business models and ensuring holistic integration of disciplines across the value chain.
- Validate the proposed solutions for a set of locations that is coherent with the risks and disasters considered in the proposal, ensuring a high degree of awareness and involvement of supply chains.
- Demonstrate that the proposed solutions improve the protection of people when experiencing disruptive events and contribute to enhance resilience and climate proofing at a larger scale (e.g. district, city, energy system).
- Demonstrate that the proposed solutions contribute to improving the overall quality of living and working in the buildings (e.g. in terms of accessibility, comfort and well-being).
- Demonstrate cost-effective improvement of the energy performance, reducing the cost of the interventions compared to traditional methods, as well as the energy related operational costs after the renovation.
- Demonstrate that the proposed solutions improve the use of relevant data such as weather forecasts or catastrophe warnings by monitoring and management systems in the built environment (e.g. to launch automatic emergency protocols to warn and protect buildings users).
- Lead at least 3 large-scale demonstration of the solutions in diverse geographical areas, with various local environmental, social, and economic conditions.
Funding Information
The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:
- public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
- cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).
Expected Outcomes
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Increased awareness of the built environment’s protective role for people and climate adaptation in case of disruptive events.
- Mainstreamed resilience as a key feature of the built environment across its life cycle.
- Improved ability of the built environment to support the preparedness and responsiveness to disruptive events at larger scales.
- Improved ability of the built environment to contribute to the overall quality of living and working.
- Strengthened supply chains for materials and solutions for a resilient and climate proof built environment, adapted to local risks.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
- eligible non-EU countries:
- countries associated to Horizon Europe;
- low- and middle-income countries.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3ezAiCA