LC-CLA-23-2020: Towards a comprehensive European mountain research strategy
European mountain regions play a central role for the well-being of many highly populated European regions for instance for water and energy supply, weather regimes, recreation and tourism. European mountain regions are home to a high degree of biodiversity, including many endemic species that occur nowhere else. However, mountain regions are expected to react far more sensitively to global change than other parts of the world. Therefore, research on sustainability of these regions is important not only for the population living there and the many tourists visiting them (e.g. 150 Millions/year for the Alps) but for a significant part of Europe’s population. European countries operate excellent research infrastructures in mountain regions and are leading in many fields concerning climate, ecosystems, life in extreme environments, pollution monitoring and other aspects. Making the most efficient use of these resources and the latest scientific developments for addressing the abovementioned challenges, while contributing to climate change mitigation efforts targeted at this specific ecosystem, requires a high degree of coordination within Europe and beyond. Hence, a prominent challenge for this topic is to support and coordinate research and innovation to advance the understanding of current changes in mountain areas derived from climate changes, the synergies with other human–related forcing, the prediction of potential changes in these regions, and to foster observations for a sound monitoring of the regions.
Scope:
The action should coordinate and support mountain regions research in Europe and develop a comprehensive European Mountain Research Strategy building on existing European activities. This strategy should aim to support the development of services necessary for the adaption to climate change and the improvement and extension of observations, in particular in-situ ones, for the monitoring of the mountain regions. In line with Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), citizens, civil society organisations and other relevant stakeholders should be involved in the co-design of the research strategy. This initiative strives for enhanced coordination with international research organisations and programmes related to mountain regions research (e.g. WMO, ESA, GEO, NEMOR and JPI 'Climate') as well as with relevant operational services including Copernicus. This action should support the implementation of the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region – EUSALP (https://www.alpine-region.eu/) and the GEO global Network for Observation and information in Mountain Environment – GEO-GNOME (http://earthobservations.org/geoss_wp.php), and take advantage of other regional and thematic networks initiatives that are being developed in Europe.
In line with the strategy for EU international cooperation in research and innovation (COM(2012)497), international cooperation is encouraged, in particular with countries such as Canada, China, India, Russia, United States, and Latin American countries.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU in the range of EUR 1.5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
Expected Impact:
The project results are expected to contribute to:
- substantially raising the scale and ambition of inter-disciplinary mountain regions research policy in Europe;
- improved coherent and efficient use of European resources for mountain research;
- significant extension of the Copernicus and EuroGEOSS services and products to the mountain regions;
- step change in the domain of open data access, quality control and interoperability for mountain region monitoring and adapting to climate change.
Cross-cutting Priorities:
original source and more information: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/lc-cla-23-2020
- Horizon Europe / H2020
- H2020
- Cross-thematic/Interdisciplinary
- Natural Sciences
Entry created by Admin WBC-RTI.info on December 2, 2019
Modified on December 2, 2019
