Strengthening rural communities' resilience to shocks
Research and Innovation Actions to strengthen rural communities' resilience to climate, environmental, and socio-economic shocks by 2040.
This call supports projects that help rural communities better anticipate, prepare for, and recover from various shocks. It promotes inclusive governance involving youth and vulnerable groups. The goal is to build sustainable, resilient, and prosperous rural areas aligned with EU policies.
Likely relevant for
- Rural development researchers
- Social sciences and humanities experts
- Local authorities and governance bodies
- Climate adaptation specialists
- Disaster risk management professionals
- Community-based organizations
Project signals
What it funds
- Research and innovation to foster sustainable, balanced, equitable, and inclusive rural development
- Assessment of various shocks impacting rural communities including climate, environmental, economic, socio-cultural, and demographic
- Measurement of rural resilience using appropriate indicators
- Inclusive and participatory governance involving women, youth, and vulnerable groups
- Mobilization of local resources for community-based adaptation and resilience
- Support for multi-level governance in designing and evaluating response strategies
- Collaboration with other Horizon Europe projects and use of existing results
Expected outcomes
- Improved capacity of rural communities to anticipate, prepare for, and recover from shocks
- Strengthened and inclusive local governance with active youth involvement
- Better understanding of rural crisis preparedness at all governance levels
- Contribution to rural proofing of Resilience Dashboards developed by JRC
Who can apply / participate
- Research organisations
- Higher education institutions
- Local and regional authorities
- Non-governmental organisations
- Private companies
- Other legal entities
- Multi-actor approach is mandatory, involving researchers, local authorities, rural communities, and other local stakeholders
- Eligible countries as per Horizon Europe Annex B
- International cooperation encouraged
- Proposals must apply the multi-actor approach
- Participants must comply with Horizon Europe general eligibility criteria
- Specific consortium size and composition requirements
- Exact eligibility of non-EU/non-associated countries
Must check before shortlisting
- Eligibility of applicant types and countries
- Specific consortium composition rules
- Budget and funding conditions for lump sum grants
Money
Total budget for this call is approximately 15 million EUR for 3 expected grants in 2027. Funding is provided as lump sums under Horizon Europe rules.
- Total budget for 3 grants — 15000000EUREach grant approx. 5 million EUR lump sum
Application notes
- Single-stage submission model. Proposals must follow page limits and layout as per Horizon Europe General Annexes and Application Form guidelines.
- Proposal page limits and layout as described in Annex A and E of Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes
- Eligible countries listed in Annex B
- Financial and operational capacity requirements in Annex C
- Evaluation criteria and procedures in Annex D and F
- Lump sum grant conditions as per Horizon Europe Decision
- Prepare proposal using the specific application form in the Submission System
- Ensure multi-actor approach is clearly demonstrated
- Follow guidelines in Horizon Europe Programme Guide and Online Manual
- Submit proposal by deadline 23 September 2027
- Proposals must include collaboration with other funded projects under this topic
- Multi-actor approach is mandatory
- Use of Social Sciences and Humanities expertise is required
Derived from official EU Funding portal source · updated 22 Jun 2026, 16:01 UTC. Use this as a shortlisting aid; the official call text remains authoritative.
Related calls
These funding calls are closely related and may be worth considering as part of the same funding landscape.
Official source text
Fine print from the EU source record. Expand when you need the original wording.
Topic description
Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: rural communities become more resilient by benefiting from an improved capacity to anticipate, prepare for, and recover from climate, environmental and socio-economic shocks; local governance is strengthened and becomes more inclusive, benefiting from the active involvement of young people in responding to various types of shocks; rural specificities regarding crisis preparedness and management are better understood at all governance levels, allowing for more targeted provisions in crisis preparedness and management plans. Scope: The successful proposals should contribute to fostering a sustainable, balanced, equitable and inclusive development of rural areas, supporting the implementation of the long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas and its objectives that see EU rural areas stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous by 2040. The successful proposals should also support the vision for agriculture and food and its objective to foster fair living and working conditions in vibrant rural areas, and to the Commission priority to sustain our quality of life by boosting climate adaptation, preparedness and solidarity. The geopolitical situation and climate change pose new challenges that people must confront at the local level. Research and innovation can support rural communities with evidence and participatory methodologies to anticipate, prepare for, and recover from various types of shocks, while building resilience. Proposals should: assess the different types of shocks (understood as sudden disruptions) that can impact the livelihoods, well-being, gender-based differences, and resilience of rural communities. These shocks may include critical infrastructure disruptions (e.g., energy shortages, transportation disruptions, communication failures) as well as economic (e.g., job losses, financial and economic crises, market instability), socio-cultural and demographic (e.g., social conflicts, health crises, migration), and environmental phenomena (e.g., natural disasters, climate change, extreme weather events, ecosystem disruptions); measure rural communities resilience with appropriate indicators by evaluating the initial impact of shocks and the capacity for recovery; foster inclusive, participatory, and anticipatory governance by actively engaging women, youth, and people in a vulnerable situation in the development and implementation of disaster risk reduction and management plans, thereby strengthening local governance and ensuring their needs and perspectives are fully integrated into planning and decision-making; identify and mobilise local resources to strengthen community-based adaptation and resilience and support the co-design of solutions that help anticipate, prepare for, and recover from environmental and socio-economic shocks; support all levels of government (local, regional, national, European and international) in understanding rural vulnerabilities to climate, environmental, and socio-economic shocks, and in designing, assessing, implementing, and evaluating effective response and recovery strategies; Proposals are expected to build upon already existing results and to collaborate with the other actions funded under this topic, and with other relevant projects funded under Horizon Europe. Proposals should include a task and appropriate resources to ensure these collaborations. Proposals should also contribute to rural proof the Resilience Dashboards [1] developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). This topic is interdisciplinary and includes the involvement of diverse areas of expertise, including territorial planning, disaster risk management, emergency response, and participatory governance. This topic requires the effective contribution of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts. Proposals must use the multi-actor approach: researchers, local authorities, rural communities and other stakeholders operating at local level (as for example civil protection) should collaborate to co-create and co-produce strategies and solutions that address local needs and priorities. International cooperation is encouraged to foster knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning across countries. [1] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/strategic-foresight/2020-strategic-foresight-report/resilience-dashboards_en
Destination
The destination supports the European Green Deal and contributes to Europe’s competitiveness and sustainable prosperity by supporting the sustainable development and the just and fair transition of rural, coastal and urban communities. This destination will support the EU Commission priorities ‘Sustaining our quality of life: food security, water and nature’ and ‘Supporting people, strengthening our societies and our social model’. R&I will support knowledge needs stemming from the EU vision for agriculture and food, the Commission strategy for generational renewal in agriculture, and continue to support the implementation of common agricultural policy and the long-term vision for EU’s rural areas. R&I activities in this destination will also contribute to achieving the objectives of the strategy for European life sciences, the EU start-up and scaleup strategy, the new EU bioeconomy strategy and the food 2030 initiative. R&I will complement the new European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative by transformation of spaces and integrating the core NEB values. Overall, R&I activities under this destination will contribute to supporting people and communities while strengthening our societies and our social model. R&I will also support communities to work and prosper with nature, preserving biodiversity and ecosystem, and scaling-up the use of Nature-based Solutions, in line with the objectives of the EU climate adaptation strategy and the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. R&I actions under this Destination will encourage international cooperation, in line with the global approach on R&I. The Destination supports unlocking the unique assets for research and innovation of the EU outermost regions, in line with the EU strategy for outermost regions [1] . Expected Impact: Proposals for topics under this destination should set out credible paths to " sustainably developing rural, urban and coastal areas ". More specifically, proposed topics should contribute to one or more of the following expected impacts : Communities are empowered to act for a transformative change to increase their sustainability and resilience, through better access to knowledge and tools (including digital ones), and are better prepared to adapt to climate change and to achieve climate neutrality as well as to address environmental issues, including biodiversity loss. Rural communities are prepared to anticipate and respond to social, economic and environmental shocks and are attractive for young innovators. Urban and peri-urban communities can access affordable, healthier, nutritious and environmental-friendly food, benefitting from empowered local food entrepreneurship and socially innovative approaches, increasing resilience and inclusiveness. [1] COM(2022) Putting people first, securing sustainable and inclusive growth, unlocking the potential of the EU’s outermost regions.
Conditions and documents
General conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
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
The following additional eligibility criteria apply: the proposals must apply the multi-actor approach. See definition of the multi-actor approach in this work programme part.
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
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]
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)
Guidance
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
Call-specific instructions
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 15. General Annexes
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
Support information
Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant. Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe. Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management. Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular. National Contact Points (NCPs) – get guidance, practical information and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe. There are also NCPs in many non-EU and non-associated countries (‘third-countries’). Enterprise Europe Network – contact your EEN national contact for advice to businesses with special focus on SMEs. The support includes guidance on the EU research funding. IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc. European IPR Helpdesk assists you on intellectual property issues. CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal. The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment – consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers. Partner Search help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.
Raw budget overview
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