Success in the fight against climate change: funding doubles in two years

Success in the fight against climate change: funding doubles in two years

With the aim of meeting the targets set in the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, the European Union has become the largest public funder of climate change, doubling its project funding in two years.

Area trends and forecasts

Funding by year

The commitment to the fight against climate change is clear and the funding trend is clearly on the rise. While in 2020 the budget for climate change projects was approximately 1.6 billion euros, 2021 saw a significant quantitative leap: the figure rose to 3.3 billion euros.

Open and forthcoming funding opportunities in Climate Change

The following is a list of open and forthcoming funding opportunities for climate change projects with their closing dates. You can check the details of each of the calls for proposals by logging in to Kaila. Not registered yet? Create an account now, it’s free!

?​ Forthcoming funding opportunities

Call nameDeadline
HORIZON-MISS-2022-CIT-01-01 | Designing inclusive, safe, affordable and sustainable urban mobility (RIA)6sept/2022
HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-02-02 | AU-EU Energy System Modelling (RIA)27oct/2022
HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-02-07 | Renewable energy incorporation in agriculture and forestry (IA)27oct/2022
HORIZON-EIC-2022-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-01 | EIC Pathfinder Challenge: Carbon dioxide and Nitrogen management and valorisation (EIC)19oct/2022
HORIZON-CL3-2022-DRS-01-06 | Improved disaster risk pricing assessment (IA)23nov/2022
HORIZON-CL3-2022-INFRA-01-01 | Nature-based Solutions integrated to protect local infrastructure (RIA)23nov/2022
HORIZON-CL3-2022-DRS-01-03 | Improved quality assurance / quality control of data used in decision-making related to risk management of natural hazards, accidents and CBRN events (IA)23nov/2022
HORIZON-CL3-2022-DRS-01-02 | Enhanced preparedness and management of High-Impact Low-Probability or unexpected events (RIA)23nov/2022
HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-03-02 | Best international practice for scaling up sustainable biofuels (RIA)10jan/2023

?​ Open calls about climate change

Call nameDeadline
HORIZON-EIC-2022-ACCELERATORCHALLENGES-02 – EIC Accelerator Challenge: Technologies for ‘Fit for 55’ (EIC-ACC-BF)23ma/2022
15jun/2022
5oct/2022
ERASMUS-EDU-2022-PI-ALL-INNO-EDU-ENTERP – Alliances for Education and Enterprises (LS)15sept/2022
HORIZON-ER-JU-2022-FA4-01 – A sustainable and green rail system (JU-IA)23jun/2022
UCPM-2022-PP – Cross-Border Risks and Marine Pollution (PJG)24may/2022
DIGITAL-2022-CLOUD-AI-02-TEF-AGRIFOOD – Testing and Experimentation Facility for Agri-Food (SIMPLE)17may/2022
HORIZON-SESAR-2022-DES-ER-01-WA1-6 – Fundamental Science and Outreach for Aviation Green Deal (JU-RIA)13oct/2022
HORIZON-SESAR-2022-DES-IR-01-WA2-1 – Industrial Research & Validation for Aviation Green Deal (JU-RIA)13oct/2022
ERASMUS-EDU-2022-PI-ALL-INNO-BLUEPRINT – Alliances for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills (implementing the ‘Blueprint (LS)15sept/2022
Interreg Europe – First call for projects31may/2022
HORIZON-EIC-2022-InnovationProcurementAwardsPrize1 – Innovation Procurement Strategy category (RPr)22jun/2022
HORIZON-EIC-2022-InnovationProcurementAwardsPrize3 – Procurement Leadership category (RPr)22jun/2022
HORIZON-EIC-2022-InnovationProcurementAwardsPrize2 – Facing Societal Challenges category (RPr)22jun/2022
ERASMUS-EDU-2022-PEX-COVE – Partnership for Excellence – Centres of Vocational Excellence (LS)7sept/2022
InnovFund-2021-SSC – Innovation Fund Small Scale Projects (LS)31ago/2022
DIGITAL-2022-CLOUD-AI-02-OPEN-AI – Public Sector Open Data for AI and Open Data Platform (SIMPLE)17may/2022
HORIZON-JTI-CLEANH2-2022-05-05 – Research & Innovation co-operation with Africa on hydrogen (JU-CSA)31may/2022

Intervention áreas

Among the most important areas of intervention of the innovation projects against climate change are:

  • Climate science and solutions
  • Energy supply
  • Energy systems and networks
  • Buildings and industrial facilities in the energy transition
  • Communities and cities
  • Industrial competitiveness in transport
  • Clean, safe, and accessible transport and mobility
  • Intelligent mobility
  • Energy storage

Funding programmes for climate change projects

The European programmes that have published the most funding opportunities related to the area since 2014 so far are Horizon 2020 (341) and Horizon Europe (195). Given that the Horizon Europe programme is currently underway and part of the Cluster 5 calls related to climate change are still unpublished, it is foreseeable that this figure will be exceeded shortly.


Projects per year and funding per Project

Since 2014, 4,759 projects have been carried out. The year with the highest number of projects was 2019 with 441. It is worth noting that, despite the fact that each year the amount of funding has been increasing, the number of projects does not have an upward trend from 2016 to 2021. It remains fairly stable. Therefore, we can deduce that there has been more budget for each project.

The average budget per project was 1.4 M€ in 2014 and 2.4 M€ in 2021.


Countries with the highest number of projects

Italy tops the list of European countries with the most projects carried out (2,761). It is followed by a similar number of projects: Spain (2,369), Germany (2,351), France (2,300), and the United Kingdom (2,300).

The rest of the countries that complete the list have lower participation.


Geographical distribution of funding

Below is a map of the geographical areas that receive the most funding for climate change projects. Although Italy is the leader in terms of the number of projects, the area of northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands has received the most funding.


Map of coordinators

Climate change project coordinators are similarly spread across Europe.


Most innovative organisations in the field

These are the organisations that have carried out the most climate change projects in the European Union over the last five years.

As for the organisations that have obtained the most funding by carrying out projects in the last five years, we can see that four of the five organisations coincide, although they do not appear in the same order. And in the case of funding, a new organisation appears, MPG, with a total of 19 projects (which is why it did not appear in the previous list).


Projects with increased funding

These are the projects that have obtained the most funding in the last five years.

N.ProjectStatusGrant
1EJP SOIL | Towards climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soilsOngoing40.000.000€
2MERLIN | Mainstreaming Ecological Restoration of freshwater-related ecosystems in a Landscape context: INnovation, upscaling and transformationOngoing21.245.939€
3FIRE-RES | Innovative technologies and socio-ecological-economic solutions for fire resilient territories in Europe.Ongoing19.896.327€
4RESPONSE | integRatEd Solutions for POsitive eNergy and reSilient CitiEsOngoing19.820.169€
5REST-COAST | Large scale RESToration of COASTal ecosystems through rivers to sea connectivityOngoing17.823.756€
6Biodiv’EstOngoing15.665.424€
7EXCELSIOR | ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the EnvironmentOngoing15.000.000€
8REWAISE | REsilient WAter Innovation for Smart EconomyOngoing14.984.657€
9EMME-CARE | Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East – Climate and Atmosphere Research CentreOngoing14.944.914€
10IMPETUS | DYNAMIC INFORMATION MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CLIMATE RESILIENT ADAPTATION PACKAGES IN EUROPEAN REGIONSOngoing14.872.468€

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