European partnership: Forests and Forestry for a Sustainable Future
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See in 5 min if you're eligible for European partnership: Forests and Forestry for a Sustainable Future offering max €30.0M funding💰 Funding Details
Funding Description
Overview
European partnership: Forests and Forestry for a Sustainable Future is a Horizon Europe COFUND action (HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-CIRCBIO-15). The grant finances the establishment and long-term operation (7–10 years) of a trans-national R&I partnership that co-funds national/regional forest research programmes and joint activities.
Key Financial Facts
- EU co-funding rate: 30 % of eligible costs (actual-cost model, HORIZON-AG).
- Maximum EU contribution per Grant Agreement: €30 000 000.
- Total partnership budget: EU funding + mandatory cash and/or in-kind commitments from participating programme owners/managers (typically leverage ratio ≥ 2:1).
- Minimum spend as grants to third parties: ≥ 50 % of total eligible costs; each third-party grant may reach €10 000 000.
- Cost categories funded: coordination & management, preparation / running of joint calls, monitoring & impact assessment, additional joint activities (foresight, citizen science, training, standardisation, policy interfacing), communication & exploitation.
- Indirect costs: 25 % flat-rate applied to eligible direct costs.
- Pre-financing: ± 40 % of EU share at signature; further payments linked to periodic reports.
Who Is Eligible?
1. Programme owners / managers (ministries, regional authorities, public funding agencies) from EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries – mandatory as beneficiaries.
2. Other entities (research performers, universities, RTOs, SMEs, NGOs, international networks, JRC) – may join as beneficiaries, affiliated entities or associated partners if they contribute to partnership activities.
3. Third-country participants – welcome in joint calls if they bring own funding; their involvement must show clear added value.
4. Ukraine’s integration – explicitly encouraged; costs are eligible under the same conditions.
What Activities Are Funded?
- Co-design, updates and implementation of a Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda (SRIA).
- At least one co-funded trans-national call (recommended two) covering: climate-smart silviculture, forest monitoring & digital twins, biodiversity restoration, circular bio-based value chains, new green business models (carbon farming, PES, eco-tourism), and socio-economic/ governance research.
- Additional joint actions: stakeholder fora, knowledge hubs, mobility & training schemes, foresight studies, citizen-science pilots, standardisation, policy briefs, uptake & exploitation measures, alignment with EU Missions and other partnerships.
- Central support structures: partnership office, IT systems for call management/evaluation, FAIR data infrastructure linking to EOSC and FISE.
Mandatory Horizontal Requirements
- Open Science & FAIR data (ORD, DMP, EOSC connection).
- SSH & gender dimension in research content and consortium leadership; Gender Equality Plans for public entities.
- Climate mainstreaming (target 40 % climate-related expenditure).
- Ethics & security compliance, including biodiversity-sensitive areas and Indigenous knowledge.
Duration & Amendments
- Typical runtime 84–120 months.
- Consortium must remain open to new partners; budget transfers ≤ 20 % allowed without amendment.
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🎯 Objectives
📊 At a Glance
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🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages
EU-Wide Advantages and Opportunities for "Forests & Forestry for a Sustainable Future" (HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-CIRCBIO-15)
**1. Single Market Access (450+ million citizens)**
- Unlocks an EU-wide customer base for climate-smart timber, bio-based materials, eco-tourism and forest ecosystem services.
- Facilitates pan-European certification & labelling (e.g., EU Ecolabel, forthcoming Forest Monitoring Regulation), reducing market entry costs versus 27 separate national schemes.
- Helps SMEs capture the fast-growing voluntary carbon market: credits generated under harmonised EU rules can be sold across borders without double auditing.
**2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange**
- Mandatory co-fund structure obliges at least 15-20 national funding agencies to pool budgets → average joint call size €60-80 M, impossible at single-state level.
- Builds transnational living labs that span Europe’s 7 forest biogeographical regions (Boreal, Alpine, Atlantic, Continental, Mediterranean, Pannonian, Steppic), delivering data & solutions that no single country can generate alone.
- Opens doors to Associated Countries (e.g., Norway, Türkiye, Western Balkans) & strategic third countries (Canada, Brazil) for truly global science diplomacy on forests.
**3. Strong Alignment with Flagship EU Policies**
- Direct delivery vehicle for the EU Forest Strategy 2030, Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and Circular Economy Action Plan.
- Contributes to Green Deal target of –55 % GHG by 2030 through enhanced LULUCF sinks and circular bio-products.
- Synergises with Missions (Soil, Climate Adaptation, Cities) and Partnerships (CBE-JU, Biodiversa+, Water4All, Agroecology, Agriculture of Data) → easier policy uptake & joint demonstrators.
**4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits**
- Co-develops common quality standards for monitoring, reporting & verification (MRV) of forest carbon, biodiversity and resilience, lowering compliance costs.
- Single GDPR-compliant data governance model via European Open Science Cloud & Agriculture/Forest Data Space avoids fragmented national rules.
- Early alignment with upcoming ESPR (Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation) and Sustainable Finance taxonomy de-risks investment and accelerates market adoption EU-wide.
**5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem**
- Taps into >3 000 research units in ERA-NET ForestValue, ESFRI infrastructures (e.g., ICOS, eLTER, LifeWatch), Copernicus, and JRC expertise.
- Facilitates researcher mobility via Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions and Erasmus+ knowledge alliances.
- Provides SMEs and start-ups with entry to EIT Climate-KIC, EIT Raw Materials and EIC Accelerator pipelines for downstream commercialisation.
**6. Funding Synergies & Leverage Potential**
- Each €1 of HEU co-fund typically crowds in €2–€3 of national cash + ERDF/Interreg regional money → leverage ratio 1:3–1:4.
- Results feed directly into LIFE projects (restoration), CAP eco-schemes, InvestEU forestry windows and the new Natural Capital Market.
- Streamlined access to private blended finance (EIB, national promotional banks) thanks to EU-level risk-sharing and standardised KPIs.
**7. EU-Scale Deployment & Impact**
- Common SRIA enables rapid replication of successful silvicultural innovations (e.g., close-to-nature forestry, fire-smart landscapes) across member states.
- Shared digital infrastructure (IoT sensors, Copernicus, AI analytics) lowers marginal monitoring costs by up to 40 % compared with national systems.
- Potential to create 1 M+ green jobs in rural areas by 2030 through new forest-based value chains, carbon farming and eco-tourism.
**8. Strategic Value Unique to EU Integration**
- Reduces R&I fragmentation: 60 % of Europe’s public forest R&D is still national; this partnership creates a single, long-term platform (7–10 years).
- Enhances EU geopolitical influence in UNFCCC, CBD and FAO discussions by speaking with one research voice on forests.
- Embeds Ukraine into ERA, supporting its green reconstruction and strengthening EU energy & raw material security via sustainable wood supply.
**9. Actionable Opportunities for Applicants**
- Position national agencies as co-funders to shape joint calls and triple their effective research budget.
- Build consortia that combine at least 3 biogeographical zones to maximise impact scores.
- Integrate SSH partners (sociologists, economists) to address business models & citizen engagement, a formal evaluation criterion.
- Exploit Copernicus free data + national LiDAR for low-cost pan-EU forest health dashboards.
- Plan spin-off applications to CBE-JU or EIC Pathfinder to secure follow-on financing.
**10. Key Take-away**
Operating at EU level transforms isolated national projects into a coherent, well-funded, standard-setting powerhouse capable of delivering climate-resilient, biodiversity-rich and economically vibrant European forests by 2030 and beyond.
🏷️ Keywords
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