Disaster Resilience & Climate Change topic 1: Science and innovation for adaptation to climate change: from assessing costs, risks and opportunities to demonstration of options and practices

Specific challenge:

As the EU, the  Member States, Associated Countries and the EU Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs)  progress towards the development of appropriate responses for adapting to climate change, there is a pressing need for developing a coherent research and innovation agenda, to provide:

         The coordination and the clustering of research and innovation activities on climate change impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation in different sectors, also in relation to long-term risk reduction from extreme weather events;

         A more standardised basis (including transferable, widely applicable tools and methods) for assessing potential climate change impacts, vulnerabilities, costs, benefits, risks and opportunities;

         A strengthened knowledge base, through a more coherent approach to the identification and assessment of the performance and impacts of different adaptation measures, with a view to prioritise relevant interventions;

         Support for the development of innovative adaptation and long term risk reduction options, fine-tuned to specific natural and socio-economic conditions across Europe, with the aim to protect and reduce the vulnerability of sensitive resources, economic sectors, green and technical infrastructure, and society from climate-change related threats.

Scope:Proposals must address the following:

c) Innovation actions [2015]

Proposals should aim to:

• Support, test and disseminate technological and non-technological options, including eco-system based approaches, to address climate-related risks and climate-proof critical infrastructure assets and systems;
• Develop frameworks for monitoring the performance and effectiveness of developed approaches, and for ensuring their optimum performance, addressing also post-implementation requirements, as well as operational and organisational/governance needs for successful replication and follow-up;
• Provide innovative solutions for major implementation projects at local, regional or national levels, while strengthening complementarity with other EU funding mechanisms, and particularly with the European Structural and Investment Funds.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between the range of 6 to 8 million euro would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact:

c) Rapid large-scale deployment and market uptake of innovative technological and non-technological climate change adaptation solutions with high replicability. Contribution to the development of technological and performance standards for adaptation options.

Type of action:

c) Innovation actions