Demonstrating solutions to help hotspots in coastal regions to adapt to climate change

Expected Outcome: In support of the European Green Deal, the EU Adaptation Strategy and the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, successful proposals will support adaptation efforts in regional and local authorities located in coastal areas and identified as hotspot to climate change.

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

• Climate resilience solutions to protect citizens and activities in coastal regions have been demonstrated and are made largely available for upscaling. This includes social, governance, nature-based and digital solutions.
• Coastal regions, cities and local authorities (in the projects and beyond) have increased their climate resilience and are better prepared to adapt to climate change.

Scope

Rationale

As highlighted in the first European Climate Risk assessment by the European Environment Agency: Southern Europe, low-lying coastal regions (including many densely populated cities) and EU outermost regions are geographical ‘hotspots’ concentrating climate risks with high severity and demanding urgent action. On the other hand, the IPCC sixth assessment report recognised sea level rise as an “existential threat for coastal communities and their heritage, particularly beyond 2100”[1], also highlighting the urgency for increasing adaptation efforts. This is why this topic specifically addresses coastal resilience in hotspot regions.

Solutions sought

Proposals should identify approaches and demonstrate innovative solutions to increase climate resilience in coastal areas. They should explore, in a systemic way, how to best adapt to different pressures -- ranging from sea level rise (e.g., coastal floods, coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion) and invasive species to changing physical and chemical properties of the waters. Proposals should outline how the innovative solutions they put forward avoid maladaptation, consider equity and inclusivity and address long-term climate impacts (i.e. 2100 and beyond).

Nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation should be explored as a priority, in line with the Mission Implementation Plan and the Nature Restoration Law recently adopted. Blue-green infrastructures (as opposed to grey) may represent multipurpose, “no regret” solutions, which simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build climate resilience.

As coastal areas will likely need to undergo significant transformations to become climate-resilient (i.e. transformational adaptation is needed), proposals should integrate stakeholder and citizen engagement. In other words, the solutions put forward in the proposals are expected to be co-designed with regional and local stakeholders and tailored to their needs. To achieve this, the proposals should consider socio-economic impacts (including on vulnerable groups), social acceptability and expected population response to the proposed coastal adaptation measures and solutions. When assessing socio-economic impacts, trade-offs and co-benefits should be considered to ensure coherent and systemic approaches. Thus, this topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Looking into the potential of digital solutions for adaptation could be part of the proposals and would support the digital transition. This includes connecting climate adaptation measures to early-warning systems to limit the effects of extreme-weather events in near-real time.

Demonstration sites and related activities

The Mission encourages collaborations between coastal regional and local authorities facing similar challenges and considers this to be a very efficient approach to secure a large impact.

Proposal should address all the following aspects:

• Demonstration activities must take place in the territory of at least 3 different coastal regional or local authorities, each established in a different Member States or Associated Country, with the involvement of these regional or local authorities (preferably participating in the consortium as a beneficiary or associated partner).
• The territory of at least one of those 3 demonstration activities should be located in a “EUCRA hotspot area” -- i.e. Southern Europe[2], low-lying coastal area[3], or EU Member State outermost regions.
• The proposals should already identify at least 3 “replicating” coastal regional or local authorities from 3 different Member States or Associated Countries, interested in reapplying the lessons learnt (totally, partially or with the required adjustments) in their territories. For the replication, the consortium could include one or more partners that would provide support for the technical exchanges and the knowledge uptake in the “replicating” regions or local authorities. Replicating regions are not expected to conduct a demonstration or carry out on the ground activities already in the course of the project. However, replicating regions should at least prepare the theoretical framework for replicating the successful solutions (through exchanges with the demonstration regions), and explore means to fund the implementation of those solutions.

Links to the Mission and to other projects and initiatives

Proposals should build (when relevant) on existing knowledge and adaptation solutions, developed by previous projects and explore synergies with ongoing projects funded by EU and national programmes. The most relevant EU programmes and initiatives include Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe[4], Interreg, LIFE, and Copernicus[5] and the EU Mission Restore our Oceans and Waters. Additionally, if any part of the proposal involves assessing climate risks, then the risk assessment module should be fully compatible with the developments of the CLIMAAX framework (and, if applicable, its possible updates under topic ‘HORIZON-MISS-2025-01-CLIMA-01’).

Synergies with other funding sources (EU and national) should be sought to support the transfer of knowledge and innovative solutions to other regional and local authorities. This ranges from identifying opportunities to scaling up the solutions demonstrated and fostering their broad deployment across Europe. These funding sources could be public, private or a mix of both. Relevant public funding includes the LIFE programme, and its integrated projects in particular, the European Regional Development and European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Funds.

Proposals should include a mechanism and the resources to establish operational links and collaboration with the Mission Implementation Platform[6] , and other relevant knowledge platforms such as Climate-ADAPT. Projects funded under this topic will get direct access to and will be expected to participate in the exchanges of the Mission’s Community of Practice, to the networking activities supported by the Mission Implementation Platform, and to share relevant knowledge to feed the work of the project stemming from HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-01. These networking and joint activities could, for example, involve the participation in joint workshops, the exchange of knowledge, the development and adoption of best practices, or joint communication activities.

In addition, projects will be requested to feed their results and contribute to the monitoring in place under the leadership of the Mission Implementation Platform on the progress towards the objectives of the Mission and provide information and data to contribute to the visualisation of the Mission progress in Europe. To that end, proposals are encouraged to (dedicate resources to) link up their monitoring to the framework developed by the project stemming from HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-03.

Applicants should acknowledge these requests and already account for them in their proposal, making adequate provisions in terms of resources and budget to engage and collaborate with the Mission.

[1] See Bednar-Friedl et al, 2022: Europe. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1817–1927, doi:10.1017/9781009325844.015.

[2] See EUCRA’s definition of Southern Europe

[3] Following the IPCC, low elevation coastal zones are defined as ‘coastal areas below 10 m of elevation above sea level that are hydrologically connected to the sea.'

[4] Projects that could be particularly relevant include R4C, RESIST, NBRACER, TransformAr, CLIMAREST, the Adapt4Coast cluster - SCORE , CoCliCo, PROTECT, REST-COAST, other nature-based solutions projects , and projects funded under the topics HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-COMMUNITIES-03, HORIZON-MISS-2025-03-OCEAN-04, HORIZON-MISS-2025-03-OCEAN-05, HORIZON-MISS-2025-03-OCEAN-06.

[5] Within the Copernicus Programme, particularly relevant to the proposals are the Copernicus Marine Service and Coastal Thematic Hub.

[6] Currently managed by MIP4Adapt under the contract CINEA/2022/OP/0013/SI2.884597 funded by the European Union. About MIP4Adapt (europa.eu)