Bringing innovative climate preparedness and resilience solutions closer to the market

The call seeks a consortium to create an EU-level pathway for bringing climate preparedness and resilience products and services closer to market. The consortium will provide financial support through competitive calls, map public and private buyers, aggregate demand and connect supported businesses with potential users. At least 25 third parties should receive support for business development, final product development, capacity building, commercialisation preparation, regulatory compliance, and market-ready pilots and performance testing. Supported solutions must be relatively close to market at technology readiness level 7 and should cover water, food and agriculture, transport, energy, health, civil security, and critical infrastructure, including buildings, with particular attention to nature-based solutions. The consortium must also identify deployment bottlenecks, document good practices and produce policy-relevant lessons. At least 80% of the requested EU contribution must be allocated to financial support for third parties.

What this means for cities and regions

A city or regional authority could be engaged as a prospective public buyer, a source of demand, a pilot setting or a user of supported climate resilience solutions. It could also potentially participate in the central consortium where eligible and where its role complements the required business, legal, regulatory, operational or financial expertise. Satellite Earth observation could support climate-risk evidence and pilot performance testing, while Galileo or EGNOS positioning, navigation and timing could support location-based elements; if such data or services are used, the call requires the use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS. Public authorities are not listed as eligible recipients of the third-party grants, which are reserved for private for-profit entities.