HORIZON-MISS-2024-OCEAN-01-03: Atlantic and Artic sea basin lighthouse, Mediterranean Sea basin lighthouse, Baltic and North Sea basin lighthouse – Reducing the environmental impacts of fisheries on marine species and habitats

One of the main goals of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is to ensure that EU fishing activities are environmentally sustainable in the long term. Along the same lines, the Technical Measures Regulation aims to minimize incidental caches of sensitive marine species, protecting juvenile and spawning aggregations of fish species. In this context, the Marine Action Plan: 'Protecting and restoring marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries' focuses on accelerating the transition to more sustainable professional and recreational fishing practices, including improving gear selectivity and practices to reduce their by-catch, using technological innovations and practices to prevent incidental catches and reducing the impact of fisheries on marine biodiversity and habitats, including sensitive marine ecosystems. 

This topic will also support the future Nature Restoration Law, the Marine Action Plan and the Habitats, Birds and MSFD directives as well as the EU sea basin strategies. 

Objectives: 

The proposed activities should: 

• Contribute to achieve the Mission Objective 1 - ‘Protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity’ and Objective 3 – ‘Make the blue economy carbon-neural and circular’.  
• Identify, test, validate and demonstrate in real conditions, a set of suitable innovative and economically viable solutions, technologies, practices and processes to minimise the impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems, specifically aiming at protecting sensitive species and juvenile fish as identified in the Marine Action Plan as well as respecting animal health and welfare. Also, consider the energy efficiency and climate neutrality of the proposed solutions. 
• Involve local/regional fisheries management authorities, local fishing communities and end-users.  
• Address one sea basin (i.e.: 1. Atlantic and Arctic basin or 2. Mediterranean Sea basin or 3. Baltic and North Sea basin), where identified solutions will be demonstrated in several relevant fisheries. Proposals should take a holistic approach aiming at protecting marine biodiversity while also avoiding potential negative environmental impacts, including on the seabed. 

In addition, proposals must identify areas and locations where the solutions are replicable and draw up an action plan and roadmap to replicate and scale up the ecosystem and biodiversity restoration solutions and actions.  

Proposals addressing the EU Outermost Regions are encouraged, given these regions’ natural assets. 

Eligible applicants: 

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 Regulations have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic. 

Further information on the application process and on eligibility can be found in the General Annexes of the Horizon Europe 2023-2025 Work Programme.   

Budget: 

EUR 24 million 

Three indicative grants are expected under this topic, with an expected contribution of around EUR 8 million each.  

Duration: 

N/A 

HORIZON-MISS-2024-OCEAN-01-03 Call for proposals page  

Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025: Missions and Cross Cutting Activities 

Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025: General Introduction 

General Annexes of the Horizon Europe 2023-2025 Work Programme 

To get support:  

• Online Manual is the guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant. 
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• IT Helpdesk – to contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc. 
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• The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment –to consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers. 
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