The European Union (EU) has published three new funding topics under its research and innovation program Horizon Europe aimed at advancing nature restoration and carbon farming.

Two of the three topics, announced simultaneously, are focused on so-called living labs, seeking to develop or scale nature-based solutions that can be tested in real-world settings and expanded across Europe.

The calls provide opportunities for “strong synergies to the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation,” the European Commission Directorates-General for Environment (DG ENV) and Climate Action (DG CLIMA) said.

The first topic, “Living labs co-creating solutions for the restoration of ecosystems addressing implementation bottlenecks and improving resilience to risks”, allocates €60 million ($66.8 million) for six projects, with an indicative contribution of €10 million ($11.1 million) each.

Projects must establish three new living labs, each comprising eight to 15 experimental sites across at least three EU member states or associated countries. They must focus either on using restoration to improve resilience to risks such as floods, droughts and wildfires, or on developing effective restoration practices in agriculture and forestry.

Relevant: EU Unveils €120M Horizon Europe Package For CO2 Storage, DAC, And CCUS Clusters

The second topic, “Networking to scale up living labs for nature restoration solutions and to address bottlenecks to implementation“, has a €4 million ($4.4 million) budget for one project.

This coordination and support action aims to connect existing and emerging nature-restoration living labs, strengthen cooperation between research, practitioners and policymakers, and help scale up solutions by identifying recurring barriers to implementation.

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