LIFE environmental governance grants

For a group application, the coordinator manages the project and represents the participating organisations to CINEA. If you apply alone, your organisation is the coordinator. Affiliated entities are organisations linked to a grant recipient: they can receive part of the funding and must meet the same call conditions, but do not sign the grant agreement themselves.

• Public or private legal entities normally qualify if established in an EU Member State, including its overseas countries and territories, or in Iceland, Moldova, North Macedonia, Montenegro or Ukraine. Norway and Liechtenstein do not participate. The coordinator must be established in an eligible country. Single-country projects are allowed.
• Sole traders can qualify despite lacking separate legal personality. International organisations qualify without the ordinary country restriction. Other entities without legal personality may participate exceptionally if their representatives can undertake legal obligations and provide equivalent protection for EU financial interests. Other EU bodies cannot join, except the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. If an association's members carry out the work, those members must participate as beneficiaries or affiliated entities for their costs to qualify.
• An entity from a non-associated country may receive exceptional funding only where the granting authority considers its involvement essential. The proposal must show that EU-territory or participating-country impacts depend on it and that participation is impossible without EU funding; it cannot coordinate. Otherwise, it may participate in a clear unfunded role at its own cost. Serbia was negotiating association: funding requires an agreement covering this call, in force by the end of selection and concluded before grant signature.
• Activities normally take place in eligible countries. Work elsewhere must be necessary for EU environmental or climate objectives and for interventions in eligible countries to work effectively.
• Your project must fit environmental governance. The separate Circular Economy and Zero Pollution and Nature Governance topics are excluded. Identify at most two subtopics for evaluation. Awareness projects must show why awareness is crucial to implementing or developing the targeted EU environmental policy and reach the widest relevant audience. Circular-economy or plastics plans under the public-administration priority must be officially approved, with measurable actions or targets and clear timetables aligned with the corresponding EU plans. Development of product or organisation environmental-footprint rules requires an open EU opportunity for that work.
• Under the priority for preparing wider deployment of proven solutions, fund the enabling conditions rather than the replication itself. Explain why the earlier project could not achieve replication or scale-up, and show new or complementary work that accelerates uptake. The earlier EU-funded project must have ended and submitted its final report by the call deadline, with evidence of successful validation and lessons learned. A previous beneficiary must coordinate the new project, or participate as another beneficiary in a well-justified case.
• You need sufficient resources and relevant staff, skills and project experience. Public bodies and international organisations normally avoid the coordinator financial-capacity check, as do projects requesting no more than €60,000; these exceptions do not waive the need for resources to carry out the work.
• Ongoing actions cannot simply be continued unchanged: proposed actions must differ significantly in frequency or intensity. Previously completed actions may exceptionally be repeated at a similar level if you show they could not happen without LIFE support. Research must remain limited, directly tied to the project and necessary because the existing knowledge is insufficient. You cannot pass the grant on as grants or prizes to third parties.
• Entities subject to EU sanctions cannot participate in any role. Entities covered by the EU guidelines on Israeli entities and activities in territories occupied since June 1967 are also barred. EU conditionality measures prevent funded participation by Hungarian public-interest trusts established under Act IX of 2021 and entities they maintain. EU exclusion decisions and the call's exclusion situations also bar participation.

Eligible cost categories include personnel, subcontracting, travel, equipment and other goods, works and services. Subcontracting normally cannot exceed 30% of eligible costs; a justified exception is possible when the necessary skills are unavailable. Contracts must offer best value or, where appropriate, the lowest price, avoid conflicts of interest and follow applicable public-procurement rules.

Equipment claimed at full cost must remain in use and be maintained by the beneficiary or affiliated entity for the project's objectives for five years after the project or until its economic life ends, whichever comes first, unless the granting authority exempts it. Selling, leasing or giving it to another entity does not meet that commitment. Indirect costs use a 7% flat rate on eligible direct costs excluding volunteer costs and land purchase. Non-deductible, non-refundable VAT can qualify, except VAT paid by public bodies acting as public authorities. Free in-kind contributions cannot be declared as costs. Volunteer work can use approved unit costs, but the resulting grant cannot exceed 100% of costs other than volunteer costs. Separate project websites need justification from the project's objectives.

An action normally receives only one EU action grant, and the same cost cannot be charged to two EU grants; the call's EU Synergies exception applies where relevant. An EU operating grant can coexist only if this project is outside its work programme and accounting separates the costs.

Status

stängd

Öppnar

21 apr. 2026

Stänger

22 sep. 2026 · 17:00:00 UTC+02:00

Villkor för ansökningsomgången

• The 2026 round is closed.[^c37]

The 2026 single-stage round is closed. It opened on 21 April and closed on 22 September 2026 at 17:00 Brussels local time. Read the CINEA call overview and the 2026 rules to understand this round.

Applications for that round were submitted electronically through the Funding & Tenders Portal topic LIFE-2026-SAP-ENV-GOV. Applicants needed an EU Login account and organisation registration for a participant identification code (PIC); registration was required before submission, followed by REA legal-entity validation with documents proving legal status and origin. Paper applications were not accepted. A co-financier's contribution required its signed declaration among the optional annexes.

The proposal must explain expected outcomes and environmental impacts in Part C, including relevant project-specific indicators where needed. Plan how results will continue and be used more widely. SAP Environment projects require an exploitation plan explaining the activities and resources needed to maintain and use the results, including how they can be applied elsewhere. Projects aiming to get environmental solutions used more widely through commercial use, called close-to-market projects, require a business plan including replication instead. Replication means applying the results elsewhere. Payments go to the coordinator.

Activities informing policy-making must complement the core project actions and follow the EU guidance. For policy-related work, draft the work plan carefully: detailed activities directed at EU institutions or named representatives can create reputational risks. Presenting a particular position to an EU institution must remain your organisation's choice and cannot be a condition of EU funding.