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Historical and regional analyses of industrial transitions and their lessons for ensuring a fair green transition

Last Updated: 8/19/2025Deadline: 15 September 2025€26.0M Available

Quick Facts

Programme:Horizon Europe
Call ID:HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-TRANSFO-02
Deadline:15 September 2025
Max funding:€26.0M
Status:
open
Time left:4 weeks

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💰 Funding Details

Historical and Regional Analyses of Industrial Transitions and Their Lessons for Ensuring a Fair Green Transition (HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-TRANSFO-02)


🔍 What is funded?

The European Commission will finance Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) delivered through a lump-sum grant (up to €26 million per project) to:


1. Reconstruct past and present industrial transitions across regions and sectors.

2. Identify effective policies that mitigated social, economic and environmental externalities.

3. Analyse regional labour-market dynamics, including *gender-sensitive* patterns of geographic mobility.

4. Evaluate participatory governance (social dialogue, collective bargaining, ecosystem approaches) that strengthened political feasibility.

5. Generate actionable recommendations for a *fair* and *green* transition aligned with the European Green Deal, Just Transition Mechanism and EU Pillar of Social Rights.


🎯 Why apply?

* Shape EU policy on just transition and inclusive growth.

* Access up to €26 M via simplified lump-sum funding (reduced financial reporting).

* Influence flagship EU initiatives: Social Climate Fund, 2040 Climate Target Plan, European Education Area, Union of Equality strategies.

* Collaborate with multidisciplinary partners, social partners and civil society to maximise impact.


🗓 Key dates

* Call opens: 15 May 2025

* Single-stage deadline: 16 September 2025, 17:00 (Brussels)

* Max. Part B length: 50 pages (plus mandatory detailed lump-sum budget table)


🗺 Eligibility snapshot

* Consortia of ≥3 legal entities from ≥3 different eligible your country, at least one established in an EU Member State.

* International cooperation encouraged; partners from non-associated your country can participate if self-funded or with national co-funding.


💶 Funding model — Lump sum

The EC pre-approves a single lump sum covering 100 % of eligible costs. Payments are linked to milestone & deliverable completion, not accounting records, easing cash-flow management.


🔗 Policy alignment

Your proposal should clearly link outcomes to:

* European Green Deal & 2040 Climate Target Plan

* Just Transition Mechanism & Social Climate Fund

* Council Recommendation on Fair Transition

* Union of Equality strategies (gender, LGBTIQ, anti-racism, Roma, disability)


📊 Data obligations

* Use and produce FAIR data.

* Leverage European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) & Social Sciences RIs (e.g. CESSDA) where relevant.


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Personalizing...

📊 At a Glance

€26.0M
Max funding
15 September 2025
Deadline
4 weeks
Time remaining
Eligible Countries
EU Member States, Associated Countries

🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages

EU-Wide Advantages and Opportunities – HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-TRANSFO-02


1. Single Market Access (450 + M Consumers)

Pan-EU evidence base → EU-wide policy uptake: Insights on labour mobility, firm adaptation and social dialogue will be immediately relevant for every Member State implementing the Green Deal and Just Transition Mechanism, maximising demand for project results.

Commercial spin-offs (training curricula, foresight dashboards, policy evaluation toolkits) can be marketed in 27 MS without additional certification, benefiting from free movement of services & data.


2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

Mandatory consortium rule (≥3 eligible countries) already drives multinational teams; additional partners from coal, automotive, maritime and renewable regions allow unique comparative datasets.

Living labs across borders (e.g. Silesia–North Rhine–Lusatia, Asturias–Alentejo, Wallonia–Hauts-de-France) enable experimentation with region-to-region transition models.

SSH excellence pooling: combine Scandinavian labour market research, Central-European industrial history, Mediterranean migration studies and Baltic circular-economy pilots.


3. Alignment with Key EU Strategies

• Green Deal, 2040 Climate Target Plan, REPowerEU, Fit-for-55 → project delivers feasibility & distributional impact analysis these roadmaps require.

• Supports European Pillar of Social Rights employment & training targets, Social Climate Fund design, and Council Recommendation on fair transition.

• Direct input to Just Transition Platform and Cohesion Policy 2028+ programming.


4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Data Infrastructure

• One GDPR-compatible data-sharing agreement covers all partners; FAIR data hosted on EOSC & CESSDA reduces legal friction.

• Results can feed into upcoming EU Skills Taxonomy and Common European Mobility Data Space, influencing future standards.


5. Pan-European Innovation Ecosystem Access

• Easy entry to KICs (EIT Climate-KIC, EIT Manufacturing) for piloting circular upgrade methods in SMEs.

• Synergies with ESFRI infrastructures (CESSDA, SHARE, ESS) provide high-quality longitudinal datasets, cutting primary data costs.

• Dissemination via European Cluster Collaboration Platform reaches 1,300+ clusters.


6. Funding Synergies & Leverage Potential

Seal of Excellence unlocks ERDF / ESF+ top-up funds in eligible regions.

• Follow-on demonstration can tap Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) for deploying transition toolkits.

• Complementarity with LIFE Clean Energy & Just Transition Fund allows financing of pilot reskilling centres identified by the research.


7. Scale, Replicability & Impact

• Comparative methodology (urban vs. non-urban, sectoral archetypes) ensures transferable policy playbooks ready for EU-wide rollout.

• Harmonised indicators facilitate integration into Eurostat’s regional competitiveness indexes, guaranteeing long-term visibility.

• Potential to inform EU-level collective bargaining guidelines, amplifying social-dialogue practices beyond national confines.


8. Unique Added Value vs. National Projects

• Only an EU platform can capture cross-border labour flows, intra-EU supply-chain shifts and multi-country collective bargaining agreements.

• Access to diverse historical transition cases (Nordic shipbuilding, Ruhr coal, Czech glass, Spanish naval yards) enriches analytical depth impossible within one state.

• EU branding increases stakeholder trust, easing entry to large corporates and transnational unions.


9. Actionable Next Steps for Applicants (EU Perspective)

1. Map regions receiving JTF & ETS Social Climate Fund resources; invite at least one managing authority as pilot site.

2. Pre-agree FAIR data protocol with CESSDA to fast-track EOSC onboarding.

3. Construct a gender-balanced Advisory Board including ETUC, BusinessEurope, Eurocities and DG REGIO for policy uptake.

4. Align deliverables’ timing with 2027 Cohesion Policy mid-term review so findings feed legislative proposals.

5. Explore joint communication campaigns with European Year of Skills follow-up to maximise EU-level visibility.


🏷️ Keywords

Topic
Open For Submission