Support to the regions in developing pathways towards climate resilience and corresponding innovation agendas

ExpectedOutcome:

Projects are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• In the participating regions and communities:
  • The pathways to a climate resilient future and their corresponding innovation agendas that regions and communities^[1] will have developed as output of this project are used to shape relevant research and innovation strategies, and to mobilise research and innovation actions to develop, test and up-scale systemic solutions increasing local climate resilience as identified.
  • The pathways to a climate resilient future and their corresponding innovation agendas that regions and communities will have developed as output of this project are reflected in political commitments to prepare the ground for the large-scale diffusion of solutions, including policy actions promoting enabling conditions, addressing barriers and leveraging funds.
  • The process developing these pathways and innovation agendas to a climate resilient future will have further mobilised and inspired the engagement of citizens, academia, the private sector and other stakeholders, including trough social innovation, in the transformative journey to climate resilience within the regions and communities and beyond.
• Within and beyond the participating regions and communities:
  • The process developing these pathways and innovation agendas to a climate resilient future will have provided a better understanding of cross-border interdependencies, risks and opportunities, as well as led to an increase in inter-regional coordination and collaboration to achieve cross-border climate-resilience and harmonization of the strategies to achieve climate resilience.
  • The process developing these pathways and innovation agendas to a climate resilient future will have provided a better understanding of how to best structure, facilitate and support the processes of deliberating and co-designing transformative pathways to climate resilience in a wide range of environmental, economic, political and cultural contexts.
  • The communication and sharing of relevant information and lessons learned will have triggered other regions and communities to also engage in their own processes of deliberating and co-designing transformative pathways to climate resilience.

Scope:

This topic relates to the Mission’s second objective, and aims to have at least 100 regions and communities^[2] that will have formulated their vision of a climate resilient future and the transformative adaptation pathways, plans and innovation portfolios to reach it.

This action aims at providing the necessary knowledge, expertise, and services to support regions in the formulation of their climate resilient future and of their place-based transformative adaptation pathways, plans and innovation portfolios.

Regional and local authorities will be in the lead of the process developing their respective pathways towards climate resilience and corresponding innovation agendas. They will be supported (i) by the overall consortium selected under this topic that will provide the general framework and tailored support to selected regions and communities and facilitate the orchestration of activities across regions and communities, and (ii) by a local, regional and /or national partner organisation with experience of working on climate adaptation, including societal transformation, that will be engaged through support to third parties in the for of grants (for minimum 70% of the EU requested contribution and of the maximum amount of EUR 300 000 per region) for each of the participating regions and communities.

The proposal should focus on building capacity of regions and communities to take leadership on their own transformative adaptation pathways. Direct and substantive support and capability building should be provided to the regions and communities, both by the overall consortium and the local partner organisation. The inclusion of a local partner organisation should ensure optimal mobilisation of local/regional/national knowledge, initiatives and stakeholders and build local human resources and organisational capacity to support each region’s transformational change process, developing local capacity with long-term local impact beyond the project duration.

The development of regional pathways towards climate resilience should build on assessments of trends and projections of future climate change risks (which are not to be provided by this project). The pathways, plans and innovation portfolios should reflect the 10 areas of innovation and transformation outlined by the Mission in adequate proportion to their relevance to each region and community, as well as any other area that may be identified as relevant by the respective regions and communities^[3]. They should also take account of the priorities identified in the national and regional climate change adaptation strategies and programmes, national Recovery and Resilience Plans, relevant regional smart specialisation strategies established under Cohesion Policy and other programmes, such as the Common Agricultural Policy.

The process developing the pathways should be inclusive and participatory, engaging all relevant stakeholders, including public administrations, private sector, universities, civil society, social partners, and in particular citizens and vulnerable groups. The process should entail:

1. deliberations on the regions or communities’ vision for climate resilience and
2. an assessment of the community systems^[4] that need to change and of the enabling conditions required to achieve the envisaged transformations,
3. the analysis, visualisation and deliberation of different possible futures possibly including different solutions and innovations, that are robust and cost-effective across these possible futures.
4. the elaboration of a set of deliberately designed innovative adaptation solutions/interventions operating at different scales and working on different parts of the system, intended to unlock transformations to greatly strengthened climate resilience. The process should provide, for each region and community, indication of the portfolio of innovations and actions intended, including scenarios, intervention points, and the description of a range of concrete innovations and activities including plans and strategies on how to fund/finance these. The development of these pathways should also take into account the cultural approach and the specific social impediment and opportunity for the design of the pathway to a climate resilient future able to involve citizens and stakeholders and create conditions for political decisions.

When designing these innovation actions and transformative activities, particular attention should be paid to possible synergies with other regional, national or EU programmes and funds or other parts of Horizon Europe. As for possibly relevant EU programmes,funds and initiatives the following are an example of what should be considered:

• CAP and LIFE;
• the Renovation Wave to ensure that critical and social infrastructure is climate proof;
• the European Climate and Health Observatory to foster information exchange and cooperation in preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change on human health;
• the ERDF and Cohesion Funds (policy objectives 1 and 2) to promote the transformations of more climate resilient regional economies in the context of smart specialisation strategies, including support from JRC facilitating the Smart Specialisation Strategies Platform;
• the Skills Agenda and the European Social Fund (ESF+) to innovate and facilitate the necessary education, training and capacity building to create the needed capacities and skills for a more climate resilient employment;
• the Digital Europe Work Programme, in particular its efforts to establish the Green Deal Data Space and the Data Space for Smart Communities, the development of the Destination Earth Digital Twins, and the relevant Testing and Experimentation Facilities to facilitate access to and better management of data and knowledge;
• Data and operational climate services, including National Meteorological Services, Copernicus Climate Change , Copernicus Emergency Management, and other relevant Copernicus services, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe relevant projects, as well as relevant actions, projects and initiatives of and through EuroGEO^[5], GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) and the European Space Agency (ESA) programmes;
• Horizon Europe instruments, including those of bottom-up nature like the European Research Council or the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and its partnerships (in particular the partnerships on biodiversity, water, and sustainable food systems) and missions (in particular the missions on oceans, smart cities and healthy soils);
• other relevant EU, national and or regional programmes and instruments (e.g. Just Transition Fund, Recovery and Resilience Facility, European Structural and Investment Funds, Erasmus+ programme, European Solidarity Corps, Invest EU, Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation programmes and relevant financing by the European Investment Bank).

The support provided by the project should be accessible to as many regions and communities as possible but should support at least 100 regions and communities. Priority should be given to regions or locations with the high vulnerability^[6], limited resources and/or low adaptive capacity^[7] to climate change impacts. Demand could be higher than what can be supplied within the limits of this action, therefore proposals to this call should include a process and criteria for how to identify the regions and communities most in need of these services. These criteria must ensure that a variety of locations are represented, in as many countries as possible, reflecting the diversity in climatic risks in Europe, as well as differences in socio-economic and demographic conditions, and in approaches to mitigating such risks. Such criteria should also take into account the characteristics of the populations concerned and the vulnerability of the locations. Respective national governments should be consulted in this process selecting the regions and communities.

It is expected that the project will have a duration of about 5 years. The process selecting the regions and communities should start as soon as possible. To allow for flexibility and overall balance, it may be considered to on-board the 100 regions and communities in a distributed manner over the course of the first 3 years. The first set of regions and communities should be fully engaged within 15 months after the start of the project. The time estimated for each region and community to develop their pathway and innovation agenda for the transformation to climate resilience is estimated to be within 18-24 months of having been on-boarded.

Proposals should describe how the consortium would:

• Define and implement a common impact framework guiding the work with the regions and communities that is to reflect, among other things, the following
  • The impact created by implementing each individual element and combinations of elements of the portfolio of innovations and activities.
  • The impact of working together on portfolio design and on learning, on collaborative ways of working, behaviours and mindsets across diverse stakeholder groups.
  • The impact of the portfolio of innovations and activities on system dynamics and how to increase the understanding of how to unlock change faster and how to make better quality decisions and to share lessons learned.
• Structure and organise the selection of regions and communities and their local partner organisations.
• Support the regions and communities in the various steps of the process developing the pathways and innovation agendas, including how it would
  • provide third party support to them through grants and means to engage local/regional/national partners to support the respective regional and/or local administrations;
  • help facilitate the engagement of relevant stakeholders and citizens;
  • ensure the necessary access to relevant information, in particular on the range of possible innovations or solutions;
  • provide tailor-made analysis, visualisation and deliberation of different possible futures for each participating region and community;
  • support the composition of portfolios of innovation and activities and an underpinning finance strategy.
• Orchestrate cross-regional exchanges to learn from each other, address cross-border interdependencies, and create opportunities for future collaboration.
• Undertake continuous efforts to learn from and improve the processes of deliberating and co-designing transformative pathways to climate resilience in a wide range of environmental, economic, political and cultural contexts.
• Communicate and share relevant information and lessons learned more broadly, in particular through Climate-ADAPT and the Policy Support Facility to be established under the Covenant of Mayors.

In order to implement the financial support to third parties, the consortium should include partners with relevant operational and financial experience and viability.

The project could leverage JRC support to provide guidance and support to regions and communities in the development of smart specialisation strategies and in identifying links to EU Regional Funds to implement their climate adaptation plans and strategies. In particular, the regions and communities supported under this action could tap in JRC support in the development of specific synergetic actions in the area of climate adaptation among Horizon Europe, national research and innovation programmes, the EU Regional and cohesion policy programmes and the Next generationEU recovery instrument.

The project awarded under this topic should collaborate with on-going Horizon 2020 projects, including those funded through the Green Deal call, in view to tailor a Mission Adaptation portfolio of services addressing the partner regional and local needs. Furthermore, the activities of the projects supported under this topic will have strong complementarities with the activities of the research actions that the Mission will support elsewhere. For this reason, the proposal should collaborate with other projects funded by the Mission.

The European Commission intends to establish a network and coordination activities amongst all the projects funded for the implementation of the Climate adaptation Mission, and also those funded under the Horizon 2020 European Green Deal call^[8] and under Horizon Europe when particularly relevant to climate adaptation knowledge and solutions, and that will be coordinated by the soon to be established Mission Implementation Platform. The project that will be selected under this topic will be requested to contribute to this effort. Applicants should acknowledge this request and already account for these obligations in their proposal, making adequate provisions in terms of resources and budget to engage and collaborate with the Mission governance.

In order to adhere to the FAIR principles, the proposals should consider the possibility to leverage the existing open-data and develop the tailoring procedure on the cloud platforms such as the DIASs or the Copernicus Climate Data Store. Through the Sectoral Information System^[9] of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a large number of examples exist of how climate data could be transformed into user-relevant information for different sectors.

Cross-cutting Priorities:

Social sciences and humanitiesSocietal Engagement

[1]Following the definition of Regions in the Nomenclature of the Territorial units for Statistics (NUTS) classification, regions are considered to be the territories at NUTS2 level. For practical implementation purposes,the concept of 'communities' has been added as groupings of people with social ties, shared values or interests, engaged in joint action. Communities can be of different size and are not always geographically confined.

[2]Following the definition of Regions in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) classification, regions are considered to be the territories at NUTS 2 level. For practical implementation purposes, the concept of ‘communities’ has been added as groupings of people with social ties, shared values or interests, engaged in joint action. Communities can be of different size and are not always geographically confined.

[3]As per the published Mission Implementation Plan https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/implementation-plans-eu-missions_en

[4]As per the published Mission Implementation Plan https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/implementation-plans-eu-missions…

[5]The European component of GEO (Group on Earth Observations): https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/knowledge-publications-tools-and-data/knowledge-centres-and-data-portals/eurogeo_en

[6]Vulnerability is the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt (IPCC, 2018 – SR Global Warming of 1.5 ºC).

[7]Adaptive capacity is the ability of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences (IPCC, 2018 – SR Global Warming of 1.5 ºC).

[8]This refers to projects granted under call H2020-LC-GD-2020, topic LC-GD-1-3-2020. The projects are still in grant preparation at the time of writing. They will be operational right at the official planned start of the Mission. In addition to the development of innovation packages improving climate resilience, a Coordination and Support Action will foster their adoption and wide reapplication in at least 10 vulnerable and low-capacity regions. A Coordination and Support Action is already included in the Horizon Europe work programme 2021 to provide additional support to regional and local authorities

[9]https://climate.copernicus.eu/data-action