The European Commission has published the 2019 calls for integrated projects and for technical assistance projects related to the LIFE program, together with the traditional call.

Integrated Projects (IPs)are projects implementing on a large territorial scale, in particular, regional, multiregional, national or trans-national scale, environmental or climate plans or strategies required by specific Union environmental or climate legislation, developed pursuant to other Union acts or developed by Member States’ authorities, while ensuring involvement of stakeholders and promoting the coordination with and mobilisation of at least one other relevant Union, national or private funding source.

Technical Assistance Projects (TAPs)have the function of helping the applicants to develop integrated projects and ensure that they comply with the timing and technical and financial requirements of the LIFE program in coordination with: ESF, ERDF, FEASR FEAMP and Fund of cohesion.

The maximum co-financing rate from LIFE for the IPs is 60%of the total eligible project costs. The remaining 40% of the cost shall be covered fully by the own contributions of the project beneficiaries or supplemented by co-financers.  In order to avoid any potential double-funding of projects using EU funds, no other EU funds may be used to contribute to this 40%.  For technical assistance projects the co-financing rate is up to 55%. Integrated projects must have an expected average contribution value of 10 million euros. For technical assistance projects the maximum contribution is 100.000 euros.

The submission and selection process for IPs has been designed based on a two-stage procedure as foreseen in the LIFE Regulation. The applicant shall submit a Concept Notefor the project that should describe the main actions and means foreseen for the implementation of the IP itself together with their overall costs for the whole project period. Deadline for submitting concept note is 5 September 2019.If the Concept Note is retained by the Contracting Authority, the applicants concerned will be invited to submit a full proposal including all forms duly completed. The deadline for the submission of the full proposalwill be specified in the relevant invitation but, indicatively it is foreseen to be on 12 March 2020. Signature of individual grant agreements is foreseen on October 2020.

Technical assistance projects follow the classic one-step presentation scheme, which involves the preparation and presentation of the complete project proposal. The deadline for the presentation of technical assistance projects is 12 June 2019 (the activities must start no earlier than 1 November 2019).

Proposals may be submitted by any legal person registered in the European Union, in the case of IPs, it is strongly recommended that the competent authority or entity responsible for the implementation of the plan or strategy targeted by the IP submits both the Concept Note and the full proposal. For technical assistance projects, private and public bodies or international organizations can be proponents.

Budget

Integrated Projects :

Sub-programme Environment: 97.000.000 euros

Sub-programme Climate Action: 26.000.000 euros

Technical Assistance Project :

Sub-programme Environment:

• Environment : 400.000 euros
• Nature : 580.000 euros

Sub-programme Climate Action :

• Climate Change mitigation : 130.000
• Climate Change Adattamento : 130.000

Further information can be found at the following webpages:

LIFE Programme – Integrated Projects

LIFE Programme – Technical Assistance Projects