Deadline: 6-Sep-23
The European Commission (EC) is delighted to launch a call for proposals for the Nature Governance under Programme for Environment and Climate Action (LIFE).
Objective
- To contribute to the protection of nature and biodiversity by:
- Supporting nature and biodiversity policy and legislation compliance assurance, and/or
- Promoting effective public participation and access to justice in nature and biodiversity policy and legislation-related matters.
- Proposals under this topic must support the implementation of the governance aspects (i.e. compliance assurance, public participation, access to justice) of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, with a focus on EU Nature and Biodiversity legislation by:
- Promoting effective public participation and access to justice in nature and biodiversity policy and legislation-related matters amongst the public, NGOs, lawyers, the judiciary, public administrations; and/or
- Establishing new or, where in place, enhancing existing cross-border, national or regional networks of compliance assurance practitioners or experts; and/or
- establishing or, where in place, improving professional qualifications and training to improve public participation, access to justice and compliance with binding EU legal instruments on nature and biodiversity, through promoting, checking and enforcing compliance; and/or
- developing and implementing strategies and policies and/or developing and using innovative tools and actions to promote, monitor and enforce compliance with binding EU instruments on nature and biodiversity, including use of administrative law, criminal law and environmental liability; and/or
- Improving relevant information systems operated by public authorities; and/or
- Engaging with citizens and others to promote and monitor compliance, and ensure application of environmental liability in relation to EU nature and biodiversity legislation.
Funding Information
- The estimated available call budget is EUR 148 400 000.
- Nature Governance: EUR 3, 400 000
Activities that can be Funded
- Promoting good practices, supporting implementation, organising trainings, educational, academic programmes, etc. to ensure effective compliance assurance, public participation and access to justice in nature and biodiversity policy and legislation-related matters amongst the public (including youth and future professionals), NGOs, lawyers, the judiciary, public administrations or other stakeholders with a view to improving knowledge, understanding and application of effective means of public participation and/or access to justice, with a particular focus on protecting nature and biodiversity via the nature, biodiversity, water and environmental liability instruments.
- With regard to professional qualifications and training, projects should ensure academic credentials (or certificates) and maximise the potential of information technology through means such as webinars and massive open online courses (MOOCs) to allow distance learning to reach as many practitioners as cost-effectively as possible. Promotion systems and techniques could involve the use of guidance, advisory services, awareness-raising campaigns, partnership agreements, or selfmonitoring systems that assist duty-holders to comply with environmental obligations.
- Environmental compliance assurance practitioners can include those working for authorities and bodies with compliance assurance responsibilities such as local, regional, police and customs authorities, agencies and inspectorates, supreme public audit bodies, public prosecutors offices and the judiciary. They can also include nongovernmental organisations, and academics and researchers specialised in one or more aspects of environmental compliance assurance.
- Strategies and policies on compliance assurance in general and combating environmental crime in particular are aimed at high-level organization of activities and interventions, especially risk-based ones. Innovative tools could relate to different compliance monitoring systems and techniques, including site inspections, surveillance (including through use of satellites and drones), spot checks, intelligencegathering, industry analysis, police investigation, data analysis and environmental audits. Follow-up and enforcement techniques can have a similarly wide coverage. Electronic complaint-handling systems, hot lines, citizen observatories and other citizen science platforms can all facilitate citizen engagement. Citizen science platforms may, amongst other things, allow competent national, regional and local authorities to engage citizens in state-of-the-environment and other forms of monitoring, while also generating more harmonized and useable data.
- Promoting good practices, preparing guidance documents, organising trainings to ensure using an appropriate mix of administrative law, criminal law and environmental liability for a more effective implementation and enforcement of relevant Union environmental law, as well as to ensure more effective public participation and access to justice on environmental matters.
- Projects should draw on existing modules and know-how in the area of environmental law training developed by the Commission and the Commission Notice on access to justice in environmental matters and related materials.
- Note: Third countries associated to the LIFE Programme: The assessment of each proposal will be done in line with the provisions of the relevant association agreement.
Expected Impact
- All LIFE proposals will have to report on their expected outputs and impacts taking into account the LIFE Key Performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs will contribute to evaluating the impact of the LIFE proposal on an environmental but also socioeconomic level (e.g. via actions impacting the local economy and population). All the indicators measured should be coherent with the conservation or biodiversity problem addressed and the type of activities planned.
Eligibility Criteria
- In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- Be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- Be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
- Non-EU countries:
- Listed EEA countries and countries associated to the LIFE Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature
- The coordinator must be established in an eligible country Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register, Before submitting the proposal And will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin. Other entities may participate in other consortium roles, such as associated partners, subcontractors, third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc.
Specific Cases
- Exceptional funding — Entities from other countries are exceptionally eligible, if the granting authority considers their participation essential for the implementation of the action.
- Natural persons — Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).
- International organisations — International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
- 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 for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons
- EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.
- Associations and interest groupings — 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).
- Countries currently negotiating association agreements — Beneficiaries from countries with ongoing negotiations may participate in the call and can sign grants if the negotiations are concluded before grant signature (with retroactive effect, if provided in the agreement).
For more information, visit European Commission.