HORIZON-MISS-2024-OCEAN-02-01: Community-led actions to restore our ocean, seas and waters

Each proposed action under this topic should address one of the four basins covered by the Mission 'Restore our ocean and waters by 2030' and should foresee all of the following types of support to Mission communities of actors of the respective basin: financial support to third parties (also referred to as cascading grants) for community-led pilot actions; cascading grants for transition agendas; and technical assistance, to be provided by the consortium. 

Please refer to the full call for proposal for complete details.  

Objectives: 

• Cascading grants to community-led pilot actions:  
• Proposals are expected to provide a detailed plan for the cascading grant call for the community-led pilot actions, in particular planning the launch of the call no later than the end of month 3 of the project. The proposals should describe appropriate means to promote the cascading grant call at lighthouse, national and regional levels that would allow them to reach as many of the potential applicants as possible.  
• The third-party actions supported through the cascading call should demonstrate measurable, verifiable, and ambitious progress towards reaching at least one or, whenever possible and applicable, several interlinked objectives and targets set out in the Mission Ocean and Waters Implementation Plan. The chosen focus of the third-party actions should depend on which objective(s) are most urgent for the communities dealing with specific conditions and realities in a particular area. 
• Cascading grants for transition agendas:  
• Proposed actions should ensure that the selection process of the third parties to which financial support for transition agendas would be granted is based on principles of transparency, objectivity, and fairness, in accordance with Annex B of the general annexes to this work programme.  
• These transition agendas involve the development of  strategic roadmaps towards reaching all objectives and targets of the Mission 'Restore our ocean and waters by 2030' in the applicant communities, with a particular focus on the objectives that are most relevant to the specific community. These transition agendas should indicate how specific results and their impacts are expected to materialise to ensure the actual achievements of the objectives. These agendas would serve as a basis for further planning of follow-up activities by the actors involved, particularly actions to meet the Mission Ocean and Waters objectives/targets, to be subsequently implemented with the financial support of various funds. 
• Technical assistance to Mission Communities of actors:  
• Proposals should also foresee technical assistance to Mission Communities of actors in the basin addressed by the respective action. Such assistance should address the needs of the Mission communities of actors in the particular basin and may include support and advice needed for the preparation of business plans, feasibility studies, impact assessments, and needs assessment, as well as long-term sustainability planning, capacity building to empower communities and any and other Mission-related actions that would require direct counselling, written guidance, online materials, webinars, in-depths sessions, deep dives, peer-to-peer support, twinning etc.).  
• The proposals should set aside funds for clustering and collaboration among four projects selected under this topic, including for a joint monitoring and evaluation framework to track the progress of each third-party community-led action project and assess their collective impact. 

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. 

According to the Horizon 2023-2025 Work Programme, the following exceptions apply: In addition to the standard eligibility conditions, the consortium must include beneficiaries from at least two regions (represented by the relevant public authorities) or associations thereof from the respective lighthouse area (also referred to as basin) covered by the proposal. 

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

With regards to the ‘Cascading grants to community-led pilot actions’, various types of actors in the communities listed above could apply for the support. These could include for example: 

• regional and local authorities; 
• NGOs, foundations, professional associations, and other entities engaged in local development and nature conservation activities; 
• educational establishments; 
• locally based companies (provided this is not in conflict with the State Aid rules); 
• research performing organisations, etc. 

Budget: 

Total of EUR 50,00 million, with: 

• EUR 200 000 to EUR 2 million per cascading grant to community-led pilot actions (a minimum of 5 cascading grants foreseen; the total budget for the cascading call to support community-led actions could be in the order of EUR 7 million); 
• EUR 100 000 per cascading grant for transition agendas (a minimum of 20 cascading grants foreseen). 

Under the ‘Cascading grants to community-led pilot actions’, attracting additional financing from Structural Funds or any national, regional, local programmes or private funding at any stage of the community-led pilot actions is strongly encouraged. 

Duration: n/a 

HORIZON-MISS-2024-OCEAN-02-01 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. 
• Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe. 
• Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – to find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management. 
• Research Enquiry Service – to ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular. 
• National Contact Points (NCPs) – to get guidance, practical information and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe. There are also NCPs in many non-EU and non-associated countries (‘third-countries’). 
• Enterprise Europe Network – to contact your EEN national contact for advice to businesses with special focus on SMEs. The support includes guidance on the EU research funding. 
• 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. 
• European IPR Helpdesk to be assistsed you on intellectual property issues. 
• CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations to be advised on how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.   
• 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. 
• Partner Search Services to be supported on how to find a partner organisation for your proposal.