This project call is for disaster resilience, response, and recovery research and development projects.
This call will support R&D projects that target the following fields:
- Sustainability
- Medical devices
- Artificial intelligence
- Advanced manufacturing
- New materials
- Other areas
Examples of projects within the scope of this call include:
- Innovative and resilient construction
- Digital technologies
- Search and rescue
- Resilient communications
- Health
- Post-disaster waste management
Collaborative international research and development, and technology development, projects can help society prepare for, respond to, and recover from different kinds of disasters. Research and development products and solutions can save life, prevent or limit environmental catastrophes, and help society prepare for a future where climate change is expected to increase the frequency and scale of many kinds of disasters.
Disaster types covered:
- ‘Human-caused’, including widespread destruction resulting from conflict and war, urban fires, and industrial accidents of various kinds.
- ‘Natural’, including avalanche, flooding, extreme cold and hot weather, drought, earthquake, storms, volcanic activity, and wildfire.
Projects should address one of the application areas that follow, or any other that has clear links to disaster resilience, response and recovery:
- Innovative and resilient construction. Such as: building behaviour modelling during and after disaster situations; seismic isolation/damper technologies; disaster-resilient architectural designs; advanced building materials and technologies (e.g. fire resistance, water resistance, shock resistance, non-toxic); durability-increasing adaptations e.g. for buildings on weak soils or floodplains.
- Digital technologies. Such as: damage prediction and early-warning systems; advanced geographic information and remote sensing systems; artificial intelligence-based sensing algorithms; sensor technologies.
- Search and rescue. Such as: automated and intelligent drone systems; rapid and effective search and rescue; portable equipment and devices capable of imaging and detection.
- Resilient communications. Such as: non-interruptible communications systems; portable communications devices; battery technologies and alternative energy sources; resilient infrastructures and systems.
- Such as: disinfection, filtration and storage solutions; autonomous environmental disinfection and sterilisation; mobile medical devices; resilient health services and infrastructures; nutrient-enriched and functional foods and drinks.
- Post-disaster waste management. Such as: safe demolition technologies; separation/classification and management solutions for construction and demolition waste (CDW); transformation of CDW into building materials and other secondary raw materials in line with circular economy principles.
Relevant industry sectors include:
- Materials
- Construction
- Health – services, public health, medical devices
- Water – public and private utilities, tech developers
- Energy – utilities, tech developers
- Information Communication Technologies
- Electronic components and systems
- Software
- Agrifood
Projects must target at least one type of disaster and have at least one clear and specific disaster-related application.
Projects should aim to develop a product, process or service for commercialisation and the implementation of project results (such as market launch) should aim to occur no later than 24 months after project completion.
Projects may develop fundamentally new innovations, or adapt, re-engineer and re-purpose existing innovations currently used or envisaged for different application areas. While the Technology Readiness Level starting point will vary from one project to another, it is expected that projects will start no lower than TRL level 4.
Project size is envisaged in the order of 500,000 euro to 5 million euro, but this does not preclude proposals requesting different amounts.