Axe Polaire Transverse IUEM: AAP Horizon Europe sur l'observation polaire (DDL prévisionnelle : 24/09/2025)
Bonjour,
Je vous transfère ci-dessous un appel à projet Horizon Europe collaboratif dédié à l'observation polaire qui pourrait vous intéresser: "Improving and integrating polar observation systems in response to user requirements at local, regional, and international level"
Cet appel circule actuellement de manière confidentielle, et ne sera publié officiellement qu'en avril 2025
À ce titre, vous pouvez le diffuser dans vos réseaux de partenaires, mais uniquement de manière ciblée et non de manière publique à grande échelle.
La deadline pour réponfdre à cet appel à projet est attendue pour le 24 septembre 2025.
Les projets en réponse à cet appel devront être portés par des consortia de partenaires européens (voire internationaux), à noter que les partenaires canadiens peuvent désormais participer à ce genre de projets en tant que partenaires à part entière
Cet appel à projet financera deux projets, chacun à hauteur de 8 Millions d'euros :
- un projet ciblant uniquement la zone Arctique
- un projet ciblant uniquement la zone Antaractique et l'Ocean austral.
Je vous invite à consulter le texte de l'appel ci-dessous.
Si cet appel vous intéresse, vous pouvez bien sûr revenir vers moi en m'envoyant un e-mail à l'adresse gael.hamon@2pe-bretagne.eu / tel. 00 33 7 63 32 51 12
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Call: Cluster 6 Call 03 |
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Specific conditions |
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Expected EU contribution per project |
The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of around EUR 8.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts. |
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Indicative budget |
The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 16.00 million. |
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Type of Action |
Research and Innovation Actions |
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Eligibility conditions |
The conditions are described in General Annex B. The following exceptions apply: The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding. If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used). |
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Procedure |
The procedure is described in General Annex F. The following exceptions apply: To ensure a balanced portfolio covering different regions, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those applications that address other regions than the higher ranked ones, provided that the applications attain all thresholds. |
Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all following expected outcomes:
- major European contribution to improved and long-term coordination, governance, sustainability, and resilience of international environmental observing systems relevant for polar regions, to better understand their evolution and role in the climate system and the related impact on biodiversity;
- enhanced usability, accessibility, effectiveness, interoperability, and exploitation of environmental observing and data systems, that help improving Earth System and prediction models, as well as digital twins (the European Digital Twin of the Ocean[1] and Destination Earth[2] in particular support the evolution of the relevant Copernicus services;
- support to sustainable management of the polar regions and to decision-making processes for civil society, local or national authorities and stakeholders, as well as EU and international organisations in order to improve their capacity to assess, verify and predict the impact of their actions to address critical challenges, thereby supporting the related EU policies, like the Green Deal, the EU climate action an adaptation strategy, the EU arctic policy[3], the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.
Scope: Long-term, integrated, and sustained observations, building on shared polar observation variables require the development of a “system of systems” approach and extensive coordination at European and international level, which implies setting up interoperable and accessible data systems that provide a more accurate picture of the polar environment and its interactions with the rest of the planet. Proposals should address aspects such as carbon cycle, biogeochemistry, sea ice dynamics, ice shelves, freshwater flows changing marine waters and oceanic circulation, atmospheric composition and conditions, subsea permafrost, degradation of marine habitats and biodiversity.
Proposals should demonstrate how they will contribute significantly to:
- improving marine and cryospheric observing systems, in particular the non-space-based components, focussing on their optimisation, integration, coordination and governance, building on available technologies or technologies in development, including Artificial Intelligence;
- harmonised, standardised and interoperable of FAIR and CARE Polar Data systems (e.g. data collection, processing and management, incl. also historical data), that are able to provide real time information when necessary;
- supporting European coordination efforts in the different governance bodies, for instance in the context of the work of the future European Polar Coordination Office;
- the development of strategies on the medium and long term in order to ensure the sustainability of the observing systems and of the delivery of products and services, taking into account, where relevant, the recommendations of Copernicus polar roadmap[4].
Proposals are expected to focus their scope on only one of the following regions:
- Arctic Ocean and coastal regions
Proposals addressing this region need to additionally take the following into account:
- The Arctic counts some four million people living in it. The improvements of the overall observing systems should include community-based monitoring and the local, traditional and indigenous knowledge and where relevant, be co-designed with local communities and Indigenous peoples and with other relevant stakeholders with view to, inter alia, developing products and services needed by Arctic actors and indigenous peoples for adapting to the changing Arctic.
- The action should support the implementation of the Roadmap for Arctic Observing and Data Systems Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON-ROADS),[5] strengthen Arctic Ocean observations and their coordination, and ensure complementarities with the activities on societal benefit assessment of Arctic observing systems undertaken by the Joint Research Centre.
- Antarctic shelves and Southern Ocean
Proposals addressing this region should additionally support the establishment of the UN Ocean Decade programme Antarctica InSync,[6] and contribute to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).
In addition to the chosen regional scope, proposals should strengthen the coupling between the polar regions themselves, both for in-situ and satellite observations, for instance through harmonised observing strategies (including cost-effective and user-friendly methods to assess and optimize the design, investment in and operations of polar observing systems), harmonised measurement methodologies, the development of Shared Essential Polar Variables, and interoperable, Arctic and Antarctic data systems.
To ensure that all work streams are coherent and complementary, the proposals should include dedicated tasks, appropriate resources and a plan on how they will collaborate with the other project funded under this topic.
The proposal should also consider collaborations with other relevant projects such as HiAAOS,[7] POLARIN,[8] and other projects which are part of the EU Polar Cluster[9] as well as with relevant European research infrastructures[10].
This topic is part of a coordination initiative between ESA and the European Commission on Earth System Science. The EC-ESA Earth System Science Initiative enables EC and ESA to support complementary collaborative projects funded on the EC side through Horizon Europe and on the ESA side through the FutureEO programme. Proposals should therefore articulate how they will coordinate with relevant ESA activities and projects selected under the Invitation to tender “ESA polar science cluster – research opportunities: Antarctica, the Southern Ocean, and the Arctic”[11].
In this context, the activity should also take into consideration and support the valorisation of future Sentinel expansion missions: CIMR, CRISTAL, ROSE-L, with the possibility to co-ordinate with pre-launch campaigns like CRISTALair and CIMRair. These Sentinels expansion missions will provide observations of vital parameters for the sea-surface, ice and snow coverage (e.g. sea-surface temperature and salinity, sea-ice concentration and thickness, overlying snow depth and ice-sheet elevations) at an increased revisit time for Arctic and Antarctic. Proposals should therefore also articulate how they will coordinate with the relevant ESA activities and projects selected under the Invitation to Tender “ESA Sentinel User Preparation Polar Science Foundational Experiment” [12]
This action offers an opportunity for Europe to continue playing a leading role in Polar research and knowledge provision at the international level, thereby contributing to the implementation of the G7 Future of the Seas and Ocean Initiative priority on Arctic Ocean Observing,[13] GEO Blue Planet Initiative, to the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance[14], the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), and to the further development of the Copernicus Services and Copernicus Arctic Hub[15]. International cooperation is therefore encouraged, also with view to the 5th International Polar Year (2032-33).
If projects collect in-situ data and marine observations, beneficiaries should make them openly available e.g. through the European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet), based on FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) principles.
[1] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/eu-missions-horizon-europe/restore-our-ocean-and-waters/european-digital-twin-ocean-european-dto_en
[3] JOIN(2021) 27 final, “A stronger EU engagement for a peaceful, sustainable and prosperous Arctic”
[4] https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/copernicus-polar-roadmap-eu-satellite-observations-help-respond-emerging-polar-challenges-2024-09-03_en
[10] The catalogue of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) research infrastructures portfolio can be browsed from ESFRI website https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/