Deadline: 06-Oct-21
Applications are now open for the EU-China International Cooperation on Increasing the Resilience of Forests grant programme.
Scope
- Adaptation and increased resilience of forests is essential for the forests to maintain their function as carbon sinks, to protect existing stocks and to ensure that forests will continue to provide important ecosystem services and to support the forest-based bio-economy.
- Due to the high variation of European and Chinese forests, diversity of landscapes as well as governance and ownership structures, adaptation strategies need to be adapted to regional conditions and circumstances, with focus on the most vulnerable forests in climate change hotspots.
- Proposals will:
- Develop and refine projections at regional scale, improve the modelling of effects on natural vegetation, both at individual and ecosystem level and support science-based decisions with a view to the sustainable management of forests, including activities related to afforestation, reforestation and regeneration.
- Design adaptation plans to increase the resilience of forests by active management of the species composition and the genetic diversity within these species (including through assisted species migration, and forest regeneration and afforestation with species already adapted and / or further improved to tolerate or even benefit from future climate conditions) while supporting forest production and ecosystem services under climate change in the various regions and forest types of Europe.
- Analyse socio-economic aspects of forest adaptation, including forest managers’ and users’ perception and factors influencing their decision making such as consumer choices, sectorial integration and international/domestic competition and analyse the potential of incentives and tools to reach forest managers and to encourage changes towards preventive strategies/measures by taking into account the different forms of forest governance and ownership.
Funding Information
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
- In line with the European Green Deal objectives and the EU forest strategy, successful proposals will support the resilience and adaptation of forests and the forest-based sector contributing to advance the understanding and science, and support adaptation and resilience of natural and managed ecosystems, water and soil systems and economic sectors in the context of the changing climate.
- Project results are expected to contribute to all following expected outcomes:
- Strengthened international cooperation with actors from China in the areas of forest adaptation to climate change
- Comprehensive knowledge base on the impact of climate change on forests and their capacity to adapt
- Increased adaptation efforts in climate change hotspots in the EU/associated countries (mountains, Mediterranean, Northern Scandinavian Peninsula, Central and Eastern Europe, outermost regions) and China
- Informed decision-making by forest managers adopting sustainable forest management practices.
- Knowledge transfer and capacity building at science-policy-practice interface.
Eligibility Criteria
- 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.
- 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/3h0Fs9q