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Opened the LIFE grants call for environmental innovation

The LIFE programme is a European Union instrument for financing environmental conservation projects and the development of Community environmental policy and legislation.

01.04.2020 The publication of LIFE Call 2020 is expected to be 2nd April. LIFE is responsible of co-financing projects about environment, especially in the field of air, chemical products, ecological and circular economy, industrial accidents, marine and coastal management, noise, soil, waste, water and urban environment, ang gives grants to accomplish pilot and demonstration projects that aim to develop, prove and demonstrate a political or management focus.  

This programme also is related to the development and proving innovative technologies, as well as the application, the monitoring and evaluation environmental policies and legislation of the EU, or looking for better practices and solutions. In particular, they are seeking with technologies and solutions ready to be applied and near to the markets, at an industrial and commercial scale during the period of the project. The budget would be of 3,4000 million euros.  

The LIFE programme is the only financial instrument of the EU that is focused exclusively on the environment. The main objective for the period 2014-2020 is to contribute to sustainable development and achieving the objectives and targets of Europe Strategy 2020 and the other strategies and plans of the Union related to the environment and climate. This programme is divided into 2 subprogrammes: one that is aimed at environment, that sums up a total of 75% of the total financing and the other aimed at climate change, with up to 25% of the total budget.

The National contact point (Punto de Contacto Nacional in Spain) is expecting to celebrate, collaborating with the executive agency for SMEs (Agencia Ejecutiva para la Pequeña y Mediana Empresa), an informative event at some point during the second half of April.

Due to the sanitary crisis of Covid-19, it is not possible now to confirm dates or the type of event for the 2020 call of LIFE. If the situation enables it, an online conference or webinar might be organized. Information about any other event will be announced with enough time. Normally, the informative event organized on 30th April 2020 by the European Commission in Brussels should take place as an online conference.

FINANCING:

Projects get a co-financing of up to 55%

PROCESS:

The process to participate in the programme has two stages:

  • Presenting a 10-page concept note that can be modified as many times as necessary until the call for project proposals closes.
  • If the concept reaches the second stage, a complete proposal of the project will be required according to the LIFE programme commentaries’. The average budget per project goes from 1 to 2 million euros.

BENEFICIARIES:    

Consortium between public and private organizations: delegations, councils, universities, public and private companies (including SMEs) and associations.

DEADLINE:

June 2020. Financing: up to non-refundable 55%. Duration: between one and five years.

MORE INFORMATION: contact us through:

Finnova’s staff has experience in more than 30 LIFE projects and one example of it is Ecobus, an initiative that gathers and then recycles oil from restaurant’s kitchens to transform them into biofuel and using it in diesel engines. This project was launched in Valencia and had a budget of 1,675,000€