This call seeks proposals to establish transdisciplinary living labs in at least three EU Member States or Associated Countries to co-develop, test, and scale locally adapted solutions for the restoration of forest and freshwater ecosystems. Successful proposals should improve knowledge and deliver new methods, pathways, and tools that enhance the provision of ecosystem services and support adaptation and mitigation to climate change.

Objectives:

The project should:

1. Strengthen the capacities of researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders to collaborate effectively on developing, testing, refining, and scaling solutions, methods, and tools for ecosystem restoration and prevention of deterioration.
2. Provide stakeholders (e.g. land managers, foresters, environmental NGOs) with practice-oriented knowledge and tools for restoration and non-deterioration, including advisory resources.
3. Equip competent authorities with knowledge of effective restoration solutions to support national restoration plans, the EU Nature Restoration Law, and climate adaptation strategies.
4. Enhance cross-territory and cross-sector collaboration, promote uptake of effective restoration solutions in living lab regions, and develop business models for financing them.
5. Demonstrate the social, economic, and environmental co-benefits and trade-offs of restoration, including climate mitigation and adaptation.

   Proposals must:

6. Establish at least three living labs in different EU Member States and/or Associated Countries, focusing on forests and freshwater ecosystems, with clear justification for cooperation between labs and stakeholders.
7. Develop a detailed, transdisciplinary work plan ensuring co-design, co-development, and co-implementation of locally adapted innovations.
8. Conduct participatory research in living labs to find practical restoration solutions, addressing biodiversity loss drivers (especially climate change and invasive alien species) and considering cultural/natural heritage. Select sites along a gradient of human impact and integrate gender perspectives.
9. Define target ecosystem conditions for each living lab, aiming for “good conservation status” (Habitats and Water Framework Directives), and assess forestry impacts on freshwater health.
10. Monitor and evaluate innovative practices for effectiveness and economic viability, developing business models with potential co-funding from authorities, businesses, SMEs, investors, and entrepreneurs.
11. Document new solutions clearly and disseminate widely to promote uptake by practitioners and knowledge transfer to all relevant actors.

Proposals should foresee cooperation with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity and the Science Service project BioAgora. Nature-based solutions are relevant to this topic if they concern the restoration of ecosystems.

Note that this call has a two-stage deadline model. The first deadline is 04 September 2025, and the second deadline is 18 February 2026.  

Eligible applicants:

Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic. The full list of eligible countries is available in the Horizon Europe List of Participating Countries.

The following additional eligibility criteria apply to this call: The proposals must apply the multi-actor approach.

Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register before submitting their application, in order to get a participant identification code (PIC) and be validated by the Central Validation Service before signing the grant agreement. For the validation, they will be asked to upload the necessary documents showing their legal status and origin during the grant preparation stage. A validated PIC is not a prerequisite for submitting an application.