Testing and demonstrating innovative solutions to improve resilience to extreme heat, including addressing health impacts

In support of the European Green Deal, the EU Adaptation Strategy, the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change and the EU Disaster Resilience Goals, project results are expected to improve adaptative capacities of European regional and local authorities to extreme heat and reduce the impacts on human health and well-being.

Projects results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Regional and local authorities are better prepared to withstand the impacts of extreme heat, therefore protecting their citizens (in particular, vulnerable groups), their health and well-being.
• Regional and local authorities are taking a leading role and actively involved in the development and testing of innovative solutions to deal with extreme heat.
• Regional and local authorities are actively exploring funding opportunities beyond Horizon Europe for the deployment of adaptation measures.

Rationale

With more frequent and intense heatwaves, extreme heat is the deadliest manifestation of climate change in Europe. It is estimated that, in the summer of 2022, heat was responsible for 60,000-70,000 premature deaths in Europe.

In fact, the European Climate Risk Assessment identifies heat as the largest and most urgent climate hazard for human health. Heat risks to the general population are already at critical levels in Southern Europe. More and urgent action is needed to reduce health risks, both from heat indoors and outdoors.

Extreme heat does not strike all the locations and all the population groups in the same way. For instance, Southern and Western-Central Europe and urban areas are more exposed to heatwaves. Areas away from the sea are also more exposed, as they are lacking any mitigation effect from the water. Similarly, extreme heat does not affect all groups in a specific location equally and this needs to be considered in the adaptation policies. Extreme heat is especially impacting the most vulnerable people due to a range of socio-economic and physiological factors, such as income (less capacity to invest in heat mitigating solutions), social exclusion, gender, age, disability, health conditions. As many vulnerable people spend a large part of their time indoors, ensuring heat resistant housing becomes of even more critical importance.

The goal of this topic is to accelerate the implementation of solutions that increase resilience to extreme heat and protect the health and well-being of the citizens, particularly in the built environment.

Solutions sought

Proposals should test and demonstrate effective solutions against the effects of extreme heat in the territories of regional / local authorities by addressing all of the following areas:

• Develop, demonstrate and evaluate systemic measures to reduce and manage heat stresses in public and private spaces and in the built environment also while avoiding maladaptation. This could include, but is not limited to, renovating/improving the design of buildings, redesigning the public spaces and/or implementing nature-based solutions (in line with the Nature Restoration Law).
• Develop and demonstrate ready-to-go actions for emergency services, public transport and utilities (water and energy) in case of extreme heat events, as well as support disaster preparedness and prevention planning (e.g., civil protection agencies).
• Explore and evaluate options for innovative funding schemes to implement the proposed heat resilience solutions for regions/local authorities, which are all operating in different contexts (e.g. jurisdiction, governance and local stakeholders).

Associated challenges, such as institutional and political bottlenecks, multi-level governance challenges, and the politics and justice dimensions of implementing innovative solutions all fall within the remit of this topic. As a result, this topic requires the effective contribution of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

For the successful implementation of the solutions and to ensure their sustainability beyond the duration of the project, the development and testing of the proposed solutions should be embedded, as much as possible in the adaptation planning of the regional or local authority participating in the project and/or in national plans.

Demonstration sites and related activities

The Mission encourages collaborations between regional and local authorities facing similar challenges and considers this to be a very efficient approach to secure a large impact. Therefore, the demonstration activities of the proposals:

• Must take place in the territory of at least 3 different regional or local authorities, each established in a different Member States or Associated Country, with the involvement of these regional or local authorities (preferably participating in the consortium as a beneficiary or associated partner).
• Should already identify at least 3 “replicating” regional or local authorities from 3 different Member States or Associated Countries, interested in reapplying the lessons learnt (totally, partially or with the required adjustments) in their territories. For the replication, the consortium could include one or more partners that would provide support for the technical exchanges and the knowledge uptake in the “replicating” regions or local authorities. Replicating regions are not expected to conduct a demonstration or carry out on the ground activities already in the course of the project. However, replicating regions should at least prepare the theoretical framework for replicating the successful solutions (through exchanges with the demonstration regions), and explore means to fund the implementation of those solutions.

Links to the Mission and to other projects and initiatives

Proposals should build (when relevant) on existing knowledge and adaptation solutions developed by previous projects and explore synergies with ongoing projects funded by EU and national programmes. The most relevant EU programmes and initiatives include Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe^[1], Interreg, LIFE programmes, the EU Mission Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, Copernicus, Destination Earth and the New European Bauhaus.

Synergies with other funding sources (EU and national) should be sought, to support common approach towards climate adaptation, carbon neutrality, sustainability, transfer of knowledge and innovative solutions. This will also allow to identify opportunities to scale up the solutions demonstrated and to foster their broad deployment across Europe through other programmes such as the LIFE programme, and its integrated projects in particular, the Social Climate Fund, the European Regional Development Fund or the Just Transition Fund.

Proposals should include a mechanism and the resources to establish operational links and collaboration with the Mission Implementation Platform^[2] , and other relevant knowledge platforms such as Climate-ADAPT ,the European Climate and Health Observatory and the Copernicus Health Hub. Projects funded under this topic will get direct access and will be expected to participate in the exchanges of the Mission Community of Practice, to the networking activities supported by the Mission Implementation Platform, and to share relevant knowledge to feed the work of the project stemming from HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-01. These networking and joint activities could, for example, involve the participation in joint workshops, the exchange of knowledge, the development and adoption of best practices, or joint communication activities.

In addition, projects will be requested to feed their results and contribute to the monitoring in place under the leadership of the Mission Implementation Platform on the progress towards the objectives of the Mission and provide information and data to contribute to the visualisation of the Mission progress in Europe. To that end, proposals are encouraged to (dedicate resources to) link up their monitoring to the framework developed by the project stemming from HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-03.

Applicants should acknowledge these requests and already account for them in their proposal, making adequate provisions in terms of resources and budget to engage and collaborate with the Mission.

[1] This includes but is not limited to projects funded by under the following topics LC-GD-9-2-2020; HORIZON-MISS-2023-CLIMA-01-03; HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-08; HORIZON-CL3-2024-DRS-01-03

[2] Currently managed by MIP4Adapt under the contract CINEA/2022/OP/0013/SI2.884597 funded by the European Union. About MIP4Adapt (europa.eu)