FORWARDS Pilot of long-term climate impact forest monitoring sites

Seeks to enhance the assessment of climate change impacts on forests by establishing pilot monitoring sites that provide near real-time data on forest structure and function.

The open call "FORWARDS Pilot of long-term climate impact forest monitoring sites" invites applications for establishing and enhancing forest monitoring sites to assess the long-term impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems. This initiative is part of the Horizon Europe project, FORWARDS, aimed at developing a pan-European monitoring tool for understanding climate change's effects on forests.

Type of projects to be funded: Projects must provide temporally resolved ecosystem-level information on the effects of climatic drivers on forest structure and function in near real-time. The projects supported by these grants are encouraged to follow the methods detailed in the guidelines to provide information with novel and improved measurements and sensors on forest disturbances and status related to climate change based on complementary ground-based sensors for Stress nowcasting (soil and tree ecophysiological data) together with information on the carbon sequestration potential of forests (Carbon storage and stand structural information). Data and results from the supported activities must be available for open access in a close-to-real time frame for stress nowcasting and feed into the ForestWard Observatory developed by the FORWARDS project.

Sectors / domain: Forest monitoring and climate change impact assessment.

Individual or consortium: Applications can be submitted by a single legal entity or a consortium of legal entities.

Specific eligibility requirements: Eligible applicants must be legal entities eligible for funding under the European Union Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Program. Entities from certain countries and those subject to EU restrictive measures are excluded.

Specific topics or challenges: The call focuses on implementing novel monitoring techniques and integrating data into the broader scope of the FORWARDS project. The guidelines define the approach and methods to be used.

Projects duration: Projects are expected to start within 2025 (by December 2025) and last a maximum of 18 months, with activities completed by May 2027.

Budget, funding rates and payment conditions:
Funding rate: lump sum.
Budget conditions / limitations: Maximum funding of 145,000 euros per project. A maximum of four projects will be funded.
Payments: Grants will be disbursed in lump sum instalments: 35% at the entry into force of the grant agreement, 25% upon approval of the interim technical report, and 40% upon approval of the final technical report.