Eligibility:

1: Applicants must be regions/communities that are either part of EU Member States (including Outermost Regions); or Associated Countries that are within Europe’s biogeographical regions.

2a: Applicants must also be legal entities (for acting as coordinators and submitting the application) defined as either:

a.Public authorities at Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 1, 2 and 3 level, and Local Administrative Units (LAU); or

b.Bodies governed by public law in compliance with Article 2.4 of the Directive 2014/24/EU.

2b: The following legal entities may be part of a consortium: a) Private non-profit bodies and b) Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) following the EU definition by the Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC and in the SME user guide.

3: Applications must define a clear geographical scope (where possible, framed within the NUTSand LAU systems) for the implementation of the P2R frameworks (see Section 3, P2R Frameworks)

Pre-selection stage:

Maximum 120 applications, will proceed to the evaluation stage.

If there are more than 120 eligible applications, the pre-selection will occur in two steps. In the first step, available slots for each country will be allocated based on its vulnerability. In the second step, pre-selection will be based on the population size of each region. Priority will be given to the most vulnerable regions.

Evaluation stage:

Applications that advance to the evaluation stage will be assessed by a panel of at least three independent experts using the following criteria: alignment, scope, stakeholder engagement, justice, need for support, actionability, knowledge sharing, and resource usage. Applications that attain a score of 55 points (out of 100) or higher during this phase will progress to the Strategic Selection stage.

Strategic Selection and Award:

This stage involves a contextual assessment that considers and prioritises a portfolio of regions/communities based on adaptation priorities and areas of research and innovation in the mission (assessed via Key Community Systems (KCS) and Key Enabling Conditions (KEC) prioritization); geographical coverage; climate risk type; impact; and diversity. The portfolio will take into account the regions selected during the first P2R call.

Upon completing the review, 61 applicants are informed of their selection and will subsequently undergo a due diligence process before the subgrants are officially granted.