Open topic on driving innovation uptake of disaster risk solutions

Scope: This topic aims to foster the widespread adoption and integration of high-TRL (Technology Readiness Level) disaster risk solutions (DRS) across multiple sectors, enhancing societal resilience to various hazards, including climate. The focus is on overcoming barriers to deployment, ensuring accessibility, and strengthening collaboration among stakeholders to drive innovation uptake. Projects should promote the adoption of high-TRL solutions by public and private sector organizations involved in disaster risk management, developing strategies for scaling and commercializing innovative DRS technologies to ensure they reach end-users efficiently. They should also demonstrate how these technologies can complement or replace existing disaster preparedness, response, and recovery frameworks by developing integrated governance and coordination models across sectors and levels for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery in multi-hazard and cascading risk scenario interoperability standards, and guidelines for integrating new solutions into national and European civil protection systems. The project should especially liaise and support other disaster resilience projects in driving their uptake as well as examine how to build synergy pathways with other preparedness grants, such as Knowledge for Action in Prevention & Preparedness (KAPP) funding call of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM). Addressing deployment barriers is crucial, including identifying and mitigating technical, regulatory, financial, and social obstacles hindering the uptake of advanced solutions, while ensuring accessibility and usability for diverse stakeholders such as first responders, local authorities, and communities and individuals in a vulnerable situation. Projects should also demonstrate the real-world effectiveness of high-TRL solutions through large-scale pilot projects and demonstrations, generating robust evidence to support data-driven decision-making and optimize disaster risk reduction strategies. Initiatives should consider the capacity gaps of the UCPM [1] , align with EU disaster resilience objectives and build on existing programs, ensuring synergies with relevant policies, funding mechanisms, and technological ecosystems. The private-public cooperation chapter of the Preparedness Union Strategy should especially be a guiding document. Proposals are encouraged to incorporate digital tools, AI-driven analytics, digital twins such as Destination Earth, IoT applications, and other emerging technologies to enhance disaster preparedness and response. Proposals should have a strategy to promote the visibility of the project and the results to the broader public in order to show the potential of European civil security research (political sphere, private sector, citizens). This could entail the European Civil Protection Forum and the European Commission Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre platform as examples. In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content should be addressed only if relevant in relation to the objectives of the research effort. Technology Readiness Level - Technology readiness level expected from completed projects Activities are expected to achieve TRL 8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B. [1] eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52025DC0286

Eligibility and submission conditions

"> General conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes. Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide . 3. Other Eligible Conditions In line with the “ restriction on control in innovation actions in critical technology areas ” delineated in General Annex B of the General Annexes, entities established in an eligible country but which are directly or indirectly controlled by China or by a legal entity established in China are not eligible to participate in the action. Subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks. The following additional eligibility criteria apply: This topic requires the active involvement, as beneficiaries, of at least 3 first responders or authorities in charge of disaster risk[[Authorities in charge of disaster risk entail public bodies operating at the national level that hold legally defined responsibilities in the area of disaster risk management. This includes national civil protection authorities as well as other institutions that can demonstrate, through appropriate legal or administrative acts, a formal mandate to design, coordinate, or implement disaster risk prevention, preparedness, or response, measures.]] from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated Countries. For these participants, applicants must fill in the table “Information about security practitioners” in the application form with all the requested information, following the template provided in the submission IT tool. If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used). described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual . 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants The granting authority may, up to 4 years after the end of the action, object to a transfer of ownership or to the exclusive licensing of results, as set out in the specific provision of Annex 5. Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025) [This [decision is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in the reference documents section for Horizon Europe, under ‘Simplified costs decisions’ or through this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/ls-decision_he_en.pdf ]]. described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes. Specific conditions described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme] Some activities resulting from this topic may involve using classified background and/or producing of security sensitive results (EUCI and SEN). Please refer to the related provisions in section B Security — EU classified and sensitive information of the General Annexes. Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA): Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System Standard application form (HE RIA, IA) Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA) HE Programme Guide Model Grant Agreements (MGA) Lump Sum MGA Call-specific instructions Detailed budget table (HE LS) Information on financial support to third parties (HE) Guidance: "Lump sums - what do I need to know?" Additional documents: HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 1. General Introduction HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 6. Civil Security for Society HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 15. General Annexes HE Programme Guide HE Framework Programme 2021/695 HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764 EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509 Decision authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

Programme context

Given the increasing frequency and ever greater impacts of disasters resulting from climate extremes, natural, geohazards and human-made hazards, the EU needs to invest more in improving disaster risk management, tools for disaster management [1] and societal resilience to avoid creating new exposure; reduce existing risk by building up resilience, prevention and preparedness; manage residual risk. In this respect, along the orientations given in the Horizon Europe strategic plan 2025-2027, the main objectives of this destination supporting the reduction of losses from natural, accidental and human-made disasters will be pursued in continuity with the strategic plan 2021-2024. This destination will support the implementation of the European Commission political guidelines 2024-2029 for a ‘Safer and more secure Europe’, a ‘Preparedness Union’, with ‘Stronger Common Borders’, protecting democracy and putting research and innovation at the heart of a resilient economy. The European Preparedness Union Strategy [2] is a key document in its implementation. Overall, research under this Cluster should continue to focus on preserving and securing citizens’ basic right to feel safe. This destination will support the European Commission efforts towards: enhancing efforts to prevent and prepare for new threats, especially those linked to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) security. continuing to address risks to security from climate change impact / step up work on climate resilience and preparedness. supporting medical countermeasures against public health threats. Moreover, this destination will support the implementation of UN Disaster Risk Reduction policies, the EU Disaster Resilience Goals [3] involving closer coordination with the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network, the rescEU initiative and Member States’ civil protection authorities, as well as an enhanced dialogue at international level with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) on recommendations for the Sendai Framework [4] and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Such closer coordination with other programmes will make it possible to further streamline future research programming. For example, Cluster 3 should focus on its core added value, which is a strong operational character for preparedness, crisis management, response and learning, while maintaining complementarities with broader prevention issues such as climate-related risks, covered by Cluster 5, and the Mission on Climate Change Adaptation. There are similar examples in closer coordination with Cluster 6 and the One Health approach, regarding, for instance, water and food security threats (as a result of intentional degradation or terrorist acts). From a technological perspective, the Destination will ensure greater involvement of practitioners in close cooperation with the Member States and EU agencies, not only in research development and implementation, but also the identification of gaps and needs and future research topics. Actions to develop tools and technologies to meet operational capability needs should be aimed at higher technological readiness levels (TRLs). Finally, it will be important to take into account how research results, both those still to come and those already developed in past projects under the DRS destination, can be turned into deployable solutions by being combined with capacity-building programmes (in particular the Internal Security Fund, funding under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism [5] , the European Regional Development Fund, and the Cohesion Fund), and social innovation to support the entry into the market of developed technologies. Actions will also aim to ensure that there is a link between R&I and possible procurement (e.g., in the area of medical countermeasures). Proposals for topics under this Destination should have the overarching objective of improving resilience. Actions will continue to explore initiatives and experiments involving the development of technological or methodological solutions for crisis management and support for emergency responders, getting the general public more involved in this area and improving interactions between regional and/or local authorities, public practitioners, private operators and civil society. Actions could also take into consideration human induced environmental disasters and regions vulnerable to extreme weather events in coastal areas, sea level rise and other climate change impacts, which may prone to disaster risks (e.g. the Arctic). New tools or solutions should build on what has been developed in past projects and be capable of being integrated into existing (legacy) systems. Actions will also focus on multi-service capability developments, in particular tools and technologies to support direct operational needs in case of a disaster. This will be done in a scalable way, covering areas from small rural towns to economically developed ones with a high population density, and opening research initiatives to international cooperation. Capabilities need to be upgraded to match the new resilience stakes and expectations of practitioners and of society as a whole. We should learn from past disaster events by identifying gaps in capabilities that the response to such events showed were lacking. For example, one of such gaps are the availability and distribution of medical countermeasures used to effectively respond to deliberate or accidental releases of CBRN-E substances. The destination will continue to follow a multi-hazard approach, addressing disasters and threats of all kinds, including their cascading issues, climate-related or natural or human-made and geological hazards, industrial accidents, pandemics, intentional hostile acts including terrorism and armed conflict. Particular attention will be paid to floods and wildfires, as well as to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRN-E) threats. To this end, proposals should contribute to the achievement of one or more of the following impacts: Enhanced citizen and regional and/or local authorities' involvement in research actions, and in operational measures that may result from research, with focus on risk awareness and enhanced disaster prevention and preparedness, adapted to all types of disability (sensorial, physical, intellectual), including youth awareness raising and education; Improved disaster risk governance (from prevention, preparedness to mitigation, response, deployment of countermeasures and recovery, using updated risk assessment methods and decision criteria, and including knowledge transfer and awareness of innovative solutions) from international to regional and/or local levels; Strengthened capacities of disaster management systems for preventing, preparing for and responding to natural and human-made disasters in the spirit of Decision No 1313/2013/EU [6] including development of new prevention or preparedness technologies, infrastructures or assets as well as in support of field operations with validation of tools and technologies used in disaster responses including emergencies, and demonstration of their interoperability. More precisely, in the context of exacerbated impacts of various disaster threats on vulnerable societies, research and innovation actions are highly needed to face the many challenges faced by European Society. Some of them are: Challenges related to inclusion of the general public, regional and/or local communities and voluntary organisations as active partners in order to: Empower citizens to act and help them to improve their disaster risk awareness and own resilience to crises, including accountability for regional and/or local administrative decisions on residual risks, youth awareness raising and education; Provide all actors involved in the management of natural disasters, human-made emergency situations, and humanitarian crises with timely and accurate geo-spatial information derived from satellite remote sensing and completed by available in situ or open data sources in all phases of the emergency management cycle: preparedness, prevention, disaster risk reduction, emergency response and recovery, as well for early warning and in emergency situations; Provide means for regional and/or local decision-makers and operational responders, i.e., first and second responders. A “second responder” is a worker who supports "first responders" such as police, fire, and emergency medical personnel. They are involved in preparing, managing, returning services, and cleaning up sites during and after an event requiring first responders, including crime scenes and areas damaged by fire, storm, wind, floods, earthquakes, or other natural hazards. These types of services may include utility services (shutdown or reinstatement of electrical, gas, sewage, and/or water services), wireless or wireline communication services, specialty construction (i.e. shelter construction), hazardous waste clean-up, road clearing, crowd control, emergency services (i.e. Red Cross [7] , first aid, food services, security services, social services (i.e., trauma counsellors), and sanitation, infrastructure owners, regional and/or local authorities (including public services, transport and utilities) to coordinate prevention and preparedness actions, bearing in mind the socio-economic and cultural context, and for operational responders to influence regional and/or local planning decisions that affect exposures and vulnerability to risks in short and long term; Address citizens’ perception of, and involvement in, civil defence in the event of very large-scale disasters including armed conflict. Challenges regarding the reinforcement of disaster risk governance and the consideration of knowledge and innovative solutions in order to: Improve operational management of crises at different levels (prevention, preparedness, response, recovery) and scales (international to regional and/or local), Reinforce the uptake and transfer of knowledge to risk managers, first and second responders and decision-makers; Strengthen resilience and enhancing protection strategies for emergency services and healthcare workers in case of disasters; Reinforce civil defence capability, looking at all facets of crisis and disaster management, alongside community resilience building; Enhance preparedness for optimised detection, prevention, response and control measures in case of bioterrorism or emerging diseases. Challenges related to wildlife- and domestic animals protection against disasters. Challenges related to the validation and usability of tools and technologies, including the demonstration of their interoperability, in the context of strengthened cross-sectorial disaster management capacities as to: Enhance risk awareness, preparedness and communication about foreseeable impacts of disasters; Deploy innovative solutions in emergency situations including trusted communication channels (considering the upcoming proposal for a European Critical Communication System), emergency medical response, including triage of victims, pre-hospital and clinical services, medical countermeasures, support equipment (e.g. detectors), as well as protection of first responders; Coordinate and further develop awareness and early systems for floods, wildfires, droughts, etc., considering Earth observation and modelling (Including the Copernicus Emergency Management Service), space communication (IRIS 2 ), space navigation (Galileo and the Galileo EWSS Early Warning Satellite System), while ensuring alignment with the technical and scientific requirements to guarantee interoperability; Enhance validation of tools, technologies and processes for cross-border prevention, decision-support and responses to climate-related and geological disasters and emergency crises by different practitioner sectors (firefighters, medical emergency services, civil protection, police, NGOs); Enhance interoperability of tools and technologies used in international emergency (real-case) situations related to natural hazards, CBRN-E threats and hybrid threats via inputs such as standard operating procedures for foresight, risk analysis or guidance with the aim to improve market uptake. This Destination will also support, whenever appropriate and applicable, the proposals with some or all of the following goals: a clear strategy from international to regional and/or local on how the overall society will adapt to the evolving disaster risks based on the subsidiarity principle (from the citizen level to international decision-making); the involvement of different disaster risk management stakeholders and regional and/or local authorities in research, development and validation of methods and tools; the active role for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs); the active involvement of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs); a robust plan on how they will build on the relevant predecessor projects, and clustering with existing research (EU and national) actions to maximise complementarities and synergies and avoid duplication of efforts; education and training aspects for first and second responders for different types of threats (climate-related, geohazards, accidental, intentional), and adapted to all types of disability (sensorial, physical, intellectual, as well as information sharing and awareness raising of the citizens; a clear strategy on the uptake of the outcomes, defined in consultation with the involved stakeholders, taking into consideration the final users and the usability of the outcomes after the end of the project; a well-developed plan both on how research data for training and testing will be obtained, in order to reach the requested Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), and on how the specific TRL will be measured. Where possible and relevant, synergy-building and clustering initiatives with successful proposals in the same area should be considered, including the organisation of international conferences in close coordination with the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS) [8] activities and/or other international events. Legal entities established in China are not eligible to participate in both Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) and Innovation Actions (IAs) falling under this destination. For additional information please see “Restrictions on the participation of legal entities established in China” found in General Annex B of the General Annexes. [1] Disaster management refers here to systems for preventing, preparing for and responding to natural and man-made disasters in the spirit of Decision No 1313/2013/EU . The protection they provide shall cover primarily people, but also the environment and property, including cultural heritage, against all kinds of natural and man-made disasters, including the consequences of acts of terrorism, technological, radiological or environmental disasters, marine pollution, hydrogeological instability and acute health emergencies, occurring inside or outside the Union. In the case of the consequences of acts of terrorism or radiological disasters, it should cover only preparedness and response actions. [2] JOIN(2025) 130 final. [3] COM/2023/61 final. [4] UNDRR, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. [5] See the UCPM scientific needs assessment on disaster risk management: https://civil-protection-knowledge-network.europa.eu/media/outcome-report-scientific-research-needs-exercise [6] Under the Decision, the protection they provide shall cover primarily people, but also the environment and property, including cultural heritage, against all kinds of natural and human-made disasters, including the consequences of acts of terrorism, technological, radiological or environmental disasters, marine pollution, hydrogeological instability and acute health emergencies, occurring inside or outside the Union. In the case of the consequences of acts of terrorism or radiological disasters, it should cover only preparedness and response actions. [7] https://redcross.eu [8] https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/ceris-community-european-research-and-innovation-security_en

Hivatkozott dokumentumok

Annex A Horizon Europe Programme Guide Online Manual [This [decision Standard application form (HE RIA, IA) Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA) Lump Sum MGA Detailed budget table (HE LS) Information on financial support to third parties (HE) Guidance: "Lump sums - what do I need to know?" HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 1. General Introduction HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 6. Civil Security for Society Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions