Deadline Date: 17-Feb-2023

The Interreg Atlantic Area Programme 2021-2027 First Call for Projects intends to select high innovative quality transnational projects, in which relevant organisations cooperate to make regions more resilient to common challenges that know no borders and cannot be solved alone.

Priority Areas

• Blue innovation and competitiveness
• Blue/Green Environment
• Blue sustainable and social tourism&culture
• A Better Governnce for Cooperation in the ATLANTIC AREA

Challenges

• Transnational cooperation is key to address the global challenges faced by European countries. Indeed, Europe is facing several ongoing mega-trends such as climate change and digitalisation. Their acceleration impacts economies and societies and demands adequate responses from stakeholders working across borders.
• Even though the area is already experiencing climate change direct impacts through extreme weather events, the impacts on ecosystems, territories and economies are often uncertain.
• The implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures are amongst the priorities of public and civil society organisations.
• The Atlantic Area, due to its geographical and maritime characteristics, is in constant evolution and subject to challenges that are common to all the regions that are part of the Programme.
• The Atlantic Area is a maritime territory. This characteristic, together with the coasthinterland interrelationships, corresponds to a major approach to the Programme's conception. In addition, the cooperation area is located within the EU Atlantic Maritime Strategy, so the development of synergies between the Programme and this strategy is highly recommended to complement efforts and achieve more powerful results, with hopefully a more significant impact on the public policies level.
• In this sense, the Atlantic Maritime Strategy published in July 2020: the Atlantic Action Plan 2.0, has been considered in the Programme design.

Funding Information

• The Programme budget allocated to this First Call is 45.4 M€. This allocation may be adjusted by the Monitoring Committee in line with the Programme needs.

Eligible Countries

• The Atlantic Area covers the western part of the Atlantic Ocean and includes all regions of Ireland and Portugal, as well as several French and Spanish regions close to or on the Atlantic Ocean coast. The total list of regions included in the Programme is as follows:
  • France: Bretagne ; Normandie, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire.
  • Ireland: Northern and Western; Southern; Eastern and Midland;
  • Portugal: Norte, Algarve; Centro; Lisboa; Alentejo; Região Autónoma das Açores; Região Autónoma de Madeira;
  • Spain: País Vasco; Navarra; La Rioja; Cantabria; Principado de Asturias; Galicia; Andalucía; Islas Canarias.

Eligibility Criteria

• A wide range of organisations, under public or private law, are potential beneficiaries of the European Regional Development Fund and may therefore join a project partnership. Lead Partner organisations can be public bodies, universities, education and research organisations, private institutions (not-for-profit) and international organisations acting under national law. The Lead Partner must be located in the Programme eligible area.
• Applicants need to keep in mind the following keystones:
  • The total project amount should preferentially be, for this call in a range between EUR 1 and 3.5 million;
  • Projects will be co-financed and reimbursed up to 75%;
  • The indicative duration is up to 36 months;
  • Projects must include at least one partner from each Member State of the cooperation area.
  • Should involve 4 to 12 full partners, taking into account that projects must include at least partners from the 4 MS of the cooperation area, one per country. Project applicants are strongly encouraged to consider the reference values as outlined above. Deviations may be accepted in well-justified cases only.