EEA and Norway Grants
Since 2004, membership of the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA) has provided the Czech Republic with the opportunity to benefit from financial support provided by Norway (the Norway Grants) and, to a lesser extent, by Liechtenstein and Iceland (EEA Grants). These non-EU European countries, operating in the EEA, set up funds to strengthen relations and improve cooperation with the countries of Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, in particular. The EEA and Norway Grants mainly finance projects that are not contributed to by the EU or the country concerned.
The areas where funding is made available are divided into priority sectors, under which individual programmes fall, such as research, education, social inclusion, the environment, culture and justice.
Under the programmes, individual open calls are launched to select specific projects. Currently, the 4th open call from the Bilateral Relations Fund and Call No. SGS-2 “Svalbard” - Air Pollution Monitoring are available for interested parties.
The Environment Programme deals with projects to improve the state of the environment in ecosystems, mitigate climate change and reduce the impact of human activities on air and water quality.
For the Trondheim call, under the Environment Programme, projects were selected that focused on new and unusual methods to remove pharmaceutical residues from wastewater and surface water. The call’s aim is to implement measures at a selected site (wastewater treatment plant) leading to a real decrease in the amount of undesirable substances, such as antibiotics and hormones, in polluted water. An allocation of CZK 93,600,572 was made available for the Trondheim call, while project applications of up to CZK 77,120,393 were actually supported. Of the twelve projects submitted, half of them made it to the second round of the call.