Open calls: Cascade funding for water innovation & protection

The Cascade Funding Hub has highlighted four upcoming funding opportunities for innovators, changemakers, regional and local authorities, as well as SMEs and startups to scale up impactful projects in the field of marine conservation, chemical pollution prevention, and sustainable aquaculture. The calls are all funded via Mission Ocean.

The calls will be presented during a webinar on February 21, 2025 at 10:00 CET. More information can be found on Cascade Funding Hub's website.

ULTFARMS 2nd Associated Regions Call

Deadline: 30/03/2025

The solutions developed and demonstrated within the EU project “ULTFARMS” involves the implementation of low trophic aquaculture farms (LTA) within offshore wind developments to evaluate the environmental and economic suitability of such efforts. These solutions include industry standard as well as novel constructions, and take into consideration nature inclusive design parameters.

To assure the commercially feasibility of the demonstrated solutions and continue research and innovation in the field of LTA, regions and countries outside of those represented by main partners In the ULTFARMS project are sought to become Associated Regions (ARs) within the Project, affiliated entities with a budget of up to €100.000 Euros to carry out an array of activities proffered within a proposal submission at local or regional levels. 

Entities from the following countries are excluded from the call as they are already involved in the project: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

ProCleanLakes Call for Associated Regions

Deadline: 31/03/2025

The open call aims to select three to five associated regions that will receive financial support up to €100.000 each in the form of a grant to develop roadmaps for the implementation of nature-based solutions for remediation and protection of natural lakes. Associated regions are expected to have access to a natural lake with similar problems (e.g. pollution, decreasing biodiversity etc.) with the ProCleanLakes Demonstration sites to be able to adopt and replicate solutions developed in ProCleanLakes.

Local and regional authorities responsible for managing, refulation or overseeing water resources, including lakes and lake catchments from EU member states and Horizon Europe associated countries except Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Greece, Germany, France, Italy, Norway, Romania and Spain. Local and regional authorities can apply as a single entity or build up a partnership of more partners.

iMERMAID Extended Demonstration of the iMERMAID solutions in new associated regions

Deadline: 31/03/2025

The primary ambition of iMERMAID is to create innovative and replicable approaches to monitor and remediate chemical pollution to support the EU’s mission to restore, protect and preserve the health of our oceans, seas, and waters. The project will deploy and demonstrate the developed solutions in various use cases, providing the basis for their future scale up addressing chemical pollution from its source to its destination.  

Through its open call, the project aims to engage with ‘associated regions’ outside the iMERMAID consortium to demonstrate the feasibility, replicability, and scalability of these solutions in new areas. These associated regions will receive funding and technical advisory services to prepare roadmaps, plans, and projects aimed at preventing, eliminating, and remediating chemical pollution. The support will address potential barriers and showcase the feasibility of implementing iMERMAID’s innovative solutions. 

The project will support 5 demonstration projects with a grant of €100.000 each and a 9 month support programme.

Eligible entities include local and regional authorities from an associated region are legal entities, including bodies representing a regional/local authority (such as regional/local agencies, regional planning bodies, regional/local transport authorities, etc), who can showcase the feasibility, replicability and scalability of the solutions developed in the iMERMAID project.

Non-eligible countries include Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, Tunisia, Ukraine. Non-eligible regions include Bosanska Krajina (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Adana Province (Turkey) and Cimişlia district (Moldova), as these were included in the first call from iMERMAID.

PartArt4OW First Call

Deadline: 03/04/2025

The challenge of the first open call is to engage local communities for protecting and restoring marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity. Participants are free to explore the many aspects and threats related to ocean and water biodiversity (such as biodiversity loss, algae proliferation, alien species, just to name a few).

PartArt4OW is particularly interested in:

• Unseen phenomena, such as those related to climate change or those that cannot be seen because we are too disconnected from the ocean to perceive its changes.
• The interdependencies between different aspects of the challenge that a PAI will choose to target (natural, cultural, political, etc) and the related societal implications.

Projects can focus on ocean or inland waters, or both at the same time. The focus should be on the communities living in close proximity to the ocean, water basins and rivers and assure that the project proposed addresses key societal and environmental challenges of those communities.

All artistic and creative expressions are welcome, including but not limited to visual (painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture), literary (prose, fiction, drama, poetry), performing (dance, drama, music, action art, street art) and others (new media, digital art, fashion design, gaming, etc.).

PartArt4OW offers a maximum lump sum of €50,000 per project to deliver a 6 month project, as well as mentorship, training and networking.

The call is open to individuals, legal entities and consortia.