LIFE 2024 Capacity Building

The expected impact is an increase of the participation and the quality of the proposals submitted under the LIFE calls by applicants from the Member State or associated country. The impact in terms of higher participation or better scoring of proposals should, as far as possible, be estimated.

In line with article 11(4) of the LIFE Regulation (EU) 2021/783, technical assistance projects for capacity building aim at supporting national level public bodies responsible for the implementation of the LIFE Programme in improving the participation and increasing the quality of submitted proposals from Member States and countries associated to the LIFE Programme.

Only national level public bodies responsible for implementation of LIFE programme in an eligible Member State in the European Union or country associated to the LIFE Programme may apply for capacity-building projects. Project consortium may include additional entities provided that their participation is justified by the project objectives and their role is clearly defined. In principle, the project should be coordinated by public bodies responsible for implementation of LIFE.

The actions included in proposals for capacity-building projects must take place primarily within the territory of the Member State or associated country of the main applicant.

Each proposal should preferably include analysis of the participation from that country and the success rate in the last calls. The analysis should include also the potential and current type of organisations that benefit from the call and why some organisations are more applying then others.

Based on this needs assessment the applicants should identify the most effective activities addressing the participation and/or the ineffective participation rate of different types of applicants (public organisations, private entities and civil society organisations) for the different types of calls (standard action projects, coordinated and support actions, strategic integrated and strategic nature projects).

Eligible activities may include:

• Targeted and tailor-made communication campaigns on the LIFE Programme addressed, among others, to public national and local authorities responsible for the implementation of environmental and climate action policies and plans at all levels and across the entire national territory (e.g. municipalities, provinces, environment protection agencies, ecological operational units responsible for the enforcement of national environmental laws, public research institutes, academia), as well as to private sector stakeholders which are relevant for the programme.
• Trainings activities for the staff members of the National Contact Points and possible exchanges with more experienced staff members of National Contact Points of other countries.
• Tailor-made workshops on writing solid proposals; helping applicants to build (transnational) consortia; trainings on the use and monitoring of key performance indicators, etc.
• Screening of national environmental and climate actions priorities to support, through LIFE projects, the development, implementation, monitoring and enforcement of relevant Union legislations,
• Actions aimed at increasing the participation of those types of applicants that struggle to access LIFE funding in a given Member State or country associated to the LIFE Programme (e.g. public organisations, private entities, civil society organisations) as identified in the needs assessment,
• Actions aimed at increasing the use of certain types of LIFE projects. In particular,in the context of increasing use of SIPs and SNAPs in a given Member State or country associated to the LIFE Programme. Capacity building projects may include actions reinforcing the mainstreaming of environmental and climate actions into other sectors, enhancing synergies between LIFE and other EU funds, and supporting the use of cumulative financing from other Union programmes or the private sector,
• Procurement of external experts to address ad-hoc gaps, to provide advice and to support in the preparation of a proposal (note: the same level of support must be provided to any entity planning to prepare a proposal. Drafting of proposals for submission under the annual LIFE calls for proposals would be considered as an ineligible expense),
• Gap analysis and assessment of policy uptake of LIFE project results.

The Commission expects that the budget will be proportionate to the activities that will be implemented under each project to address the participation rate of the different types of applicants.