Deadline: 31-May-25
The RHE-MEDiation Project aims to establish effective water pollution management by using efficient control of single pollutants, including the most challenging, and help to set up appropriate propositions to regulatory standards.
The project actively contributes to preserving the integrity of entire water ecosystems in the Mediterranean area.
Purpose
- In the framework of WP5, the RHE-MEDiation Project is managing a lean financial support scheme to allocate funds to selected replication sites, thus complementing the exploitation activity of the RHE-MEDiation technologies by sharing knowledge to maximise future implementation opportunities.
- The RHE-MEDiation Open Call for Associated Regions (OC4ARs) aims to:
- Engage local and/or regional authorities to demonstrate the feasibility, replicability, and scalability of the RHE-MEDiation solutions.
- Support the selected Third Parties in Horizon Europe in the development of the replication strategy and creating an associated roadmap.
- Securing the interest of local/regional authorities related to coastal seawater or inland semi-confined areas (linked directly or indirectly to the Mediterranean) affected by persistent chemical pollution (also defined as hot-spots) because of the low recirculation and the persistent polluted discharge from human activities on land and that are willing to acquire knowledge about cleaning technologies, like the one proposed by the RHE-MEDiation Project, thus setting the basis for a roadmap to program future scenarios of destress solutions implementation.
- Ensure the adequate monitoring of grant spending and provide support to grantees.
- Support the Third Parties involved to up-scale from local to national.
Specific Goals
- Prevent chemical pollution in waters reaching the Mediterranean Sea from land, and address environmental challenges with innovative solutions along the entire discharge networks;
- Minimize and control pollution by enabling prompt reactions in the Mediterranean hot-spots, promoting data sharing with stakeholders at demo-sites;
- Remediate existing polluted hot-spots by working at the source of major pollution discharge to enable a return to a ‘Good Environmental Status’ in the long-term period through improved dilution conditions.
Objectives
- The RHE-MEDiation Hub approach brings an integrated framework to up-scale from the demonstration and validation application at the local demo-site to the assessment and appraisal at the national and then at the EU level. The variety of cases and site contamination characteristics are such to be representative of most cases of the remaining hotspots of the Mediterranean basin; then, the replication effort can be considered straightforwardly affordable.
- RHE-MEDiation brings 3 complex demonstration cases (demo-sites or user cases), selected in three different Mediterranean countries: Italy, Greece, and Turkey, represented by the cases of Mar Piccolo Bay, Elefsis Bay and Izmit Bay, respectively. They represent wellknown hot-spots of chemical pollution in the Ionian, Aegean, and Marmara seas. According to the RHE-MEDiation strategy, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities to abate pollutants either in the seawater or in the wastewater before the latter reaches the sea, three distinct micro-algae-based scaled plants in these areas have been planned in the project.
Funding Information
- Support to the Third Parties will be provided only in the form of grants. The exact amount to be granted per each associated region will be established during the selection and negotiation phase, and it will not exceed 100,000€, being the maximum funding available for the selected five (5) associated regions equal to 500,000 €.
What do you gain?
- 9 months of technical assistance
- Technical advisory services for developing roadmaps, plans, and projects tailored to prevent, eliminate, and remediate chemical pollution in targeted regions based on specific needs.
- Hands-On Learning Through RHE-MEDiation Use-Case Partnerships
- The funded Authorities will be matched with RHE-MEDiation project demo cases, enabling them to closely follow demonstration activities and learning outcomes.
- Exploitation of the roadmaps
- Selected projects will be supported to promote the exploitation of the roadmap to be endorsed at the National level, to upscale the level of interest for other potential replication sites in the same territory/Nation.
Eligible Activities
- The selected beneficiaries commit to carry out the following activities in their role as Associated Region to the RHE-MEDiation Project:
- Be aware of the project progress through reading the project publishable documentation made available through the project website and participation to the project webinar/workshop at the end of demonstration phase.
- Contribute to outlining pros and cons associated with the use of the proposed RHEMEDiation technologies in the site under analysis.
- Undertake a preliminary design assessment for a potential establishment at the site under study and develop a work timetable and roadmap for future implementation, including the specifications of governance and the financial processes to be mobilised, stakeholders to be involved, and permissions to be achieved.
- Promote the exploitation of the developed roadmap to be endorsed at the national level, to upscale the level of interest for other potential replication sites in the same territory/nation.
- Contribute to or participate in a specific workshop where relevant authorities and interested stakeholders are invited to attend at the end of the WP5 of the RHE-MEDiation project.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants must be local/regional authorities, from associated regions located in EU Member States/Associated countries, related to coastal seawater or inland semi-confined areas (linked directly or indirectly to the Mediterranean) affected by persistent chemical pollution (also defined as hot-spots), other than those that are part of the project consortium.
- An “Associated Region” shall benefit from the Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) provided under the topic HORIZON-MISS-2022-OCEAN-01-03, only once.
- Proposals must showcase the use of RHE-MEDiation technology to be replicated in new regions.
- The proposal should foresee a clear European dimension.
- The Application and all the requested documents must be provided only in English language.
- Eligible beneficiaries for this call are local and/or national authorities from Member States and associated countries to the Horizon Europe Programme. Please check the list of member states and Associated countries eligible for HE support.
- Non-eligible countries are those in which the RHE-MEDiation Project partners are based: Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Turkey. Also, other authorities that have been funded under the iMERMAID’s open calls are not eligible.
For more information, visit RHE-MEDiation.