2024 European Calls for
Environmental and Climate Projects

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS PROGRAMME?

The 2024 LIFE calls for proposals opened on 18 April and will close in early September. Some of these calls are a two-stage process, with a first deadline in September for concept notes and a final submission deadline in March 2025.

LIFE is the specific funding instrument of the European Union solely focused on climate action and environment. Since 1992, LIFE has co-financed 5,767 projects across the EU and third countries.

The LIFE multi-annual work programme for 2021-2024 allocates  €2,45 billion to grants; and the rest is allocated to blending operations and other forms of funding (procurement, prizes, …).  Year 2024 has been assigned a budget over 745 million EUR.

  1. Nature and Biodiversity. To protect and restore the European nature and to reverse the European biodiversity loss (€1,103M).
  2. Circular Economy y and Quality of Life. To facilitate the transition towards a circular and sustainable economy and to improve the environmental quality (€697M).
  3. Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. To shift towards an energy-efficient and climate neutral economy and to contribute to sustainable development (€505M).
  4. Clean Energy Transition. To support the delivery of EU policies on sustainability and decarbonisation (€527M).

Which type of projects are supported by the LIFE programme?

Standard Actions Projects (SAPs): €1,119M. They are the most common type of projects under LIFE and represent the 80% of the total budget. SAPs aim to develop new methods, contribute to the knowledge base and enhance capacities of public and private actors. The eight available SAPs are the following:

  • Circular economy and quality of life (Environment)
  • Circular economy and quality of life (Governance)
  • Nature and biodiversity (Nature)
  • Nature and biodiversity (Governance)
  • Climate change mitigation
  • Climate change adaptation
  • Climate governance and information
  • Clean Energy Transition (CET).

Strategic Nature Projects (SNAPs): €280M. These are projects focused on supporting the achievement of the EU nature and biodiversity objectives. SNAPs have a wider scope in line with the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. There is a single call open for this period.

Strategic Integrated Projects (SIPs): €336M. These projects support the implementation of environmental or climate strategies developed by MS and required by European legislation, both in transnational and national/regional scale. SIPs offer two possibilities for calls: Environment and Climate.

Technical Assistance projects (TAs): €33M. TA projects support activities for the preparation of SNAPs and SIPs, the facilitation to up-scale and replicate results from other LIFE-funded projects and the capacity-building of MS authorities with low participation in this programme. These are the available calls:

  • Preparation for Strategic Nature Projects
  • Preparation for Strategic Integrated Projects (Environment)
  • Preparation for Strategic Integrated Projects (Climate)
  • Replication

Projects addressing ad hoc Legislative and Policy Priorities (PLPs). These are projects classified as “Other Actions (OAs)” in the programme’s WP, whose goal is to respond to the EU legislative priorities following a consultation with MS. There is one single call for preparatory projects.

Operating Grants (OGs): €55M. They provide support for non-profit organisations which are involved in EU policy implementation, along with further specific elements listed in the yearly calls. There are two types of available OGs:

  • Framework partnership agreements
  • Specific grants agreements

Coordination and Support Actions (CSAs) under CET €412M. The Clean Energy Transition subprogramme will fund activities to develop the transition towards an energy-efficient, RES-based, climate neutral and climate-resilient economy. There are 14 calls open until September 2024, covering the following areas of intervention:

  • Building a national, regional and local policy framework supporting the CET
  • Accelerating digitalisation and new services/business models for the CET
  • Attracting private finance for sustainable energy
  • Supporting the development of local and regional investment projects
  • Involving and empowering citizens in the CET

Core source of funding

The LIFE programme has been a core source of funding for environmental and climate-related projects since its creation in 1992. The previous 2014-2020 LIFE period showed Spain as the top beneficiary, with 179 funded projects which allocated over 192 million EUR. The only country which was close to these figures was Italy, with 160 projects. As the European Union is set to increase the investment in this sector, Mediterranean countries are likely to remain as the major LIFE beneficiaries.

This programme is set to continue being a major changemaker in environmental and climate development and protection across the European Union in the following years.

Euro-Funding counts with a group of high-expertise senior consultants who can support your project application If you are set in the environmental, biodiversity or energy sectors and you want to get further information about the possibilities in LIFE, please do not hesitate to contact us!

On April 30, Euro-Funding organised a webinar about funding opportunities for projects on environment and climate, along with the European Platform for Sport Innovation (EPSI), Euromontana and the Assembly of European Horticultural Regions (AREFLH). Feel free to ask for the presentation where we deepened into the LIFE programme.

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