Original title (EN): LIFE-2026-SAP-CLIMA-CCA - Climate Change Adaptation
The LIFE strand most relevant to irrigated agriculture: it funds demonstration and best-practice projects for climate change adaptation, with explicit priority on water resilience, drought management and adaptation of the agricultural sector. Unlike Horizon Europe, LIFE does not fund research but the field application of already mature solutions, making it the right instrument for demonstrating efficient irrigation technologies at real scale. Budget EUR 28 million for 2026. The call opened on 21 April 2026 and closes on 22 September 2026.
Public and private legal entities established in the EU or in third countries associated to the LIFE programme: companies including SMEs, local and regional authorities, land reclamation and irrigation boards, NGOs, universities and research centres, farms.
LIFE è molto meno vincolante di Horizon Europe sulla composizione del partenariato: è ammessa la domanda di un beneficiario unico, senza obbligo di consorzio transnazionale. Il richiedente deve essere stabilito in uno Stato membro UE o in un paese terzo associato a LIFE. Un'impresa italiana può quindi presentare domanda da sola e realizzare le azioni dimostrative anche su terreni situati in un altro Stato membro, purché l'ammissibilità geografica delle azioni sia rispettata. In pratica i progetti vincenti sono quasi sempre partenariati, perché la replicabilità transnazionale pesa nella valutazione.
Status 'Open', budget and dates verified on 27 August 2026 against the official Funding & Tenders Portal data endpoint. The 60% co-financing rate is the LIFE programme's general rate for standard action projects and was not re-read in the 2026 call document: to be confirmed. Fewer than four weeks remain until the deadline.
Every piece of information on this page was read on 27 August 2026 from the pages below. Where they disagree, the managing body’s document prevails.
adattamento climaticoagricoltura sostenibilegestione idricairrigazionerisparmio idrico
Research topic on groundwater ecosystems: developing standardised methods to detect their presence, understand their ecological functions and measure their sensitivity to abstraction…
Research and innovation topic on managed aquifer recharge in rural and agricultural areas, i.e. the underground storage of surplus water to make it available during dry periods. It is the…
The LIFE call with the largest budget in the 2026 round: EUR 173.5 million for projects on the conservation and restoration of habitats and species, implementation of the Natura 2000…
