The GRACE project (Growing Climate Resilience in Remote rural Areas through Community Empowerment) started in October 2025 and is funded under the Horizon Europe Programme and the EU Mission Adaptation to Climate Change. Coordinated by the Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC) in Italy, the project brings together 26 partners from 15 countries in a four-year collaboration focused on community-led adaptation, local innovation, and capacity-building in remote rural territories.
GRACE works directly with ten rural regions across Europe to co-develop, test, and scale climate adaptation solutions. Five Demonstrator Regions — located in Portugal, Italy, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden — will trial nature-based, digital, and governance innovations tailored to their local climate risks. These experiences will then guide five Replicator Regions in Greece, Slovakia, Ireland, Latvia, and Ukraine as they prepare to adopt and adapt the tested solutions within their own territories. By actively involving regional authorities, local organisations, and communities throughout the process, GRACE ensures that adaptation strategies are grounded in real needs, transferable across diverse rural contexts, and capable of delivering long-lasting resilience.
The project was formally launched during its Kick-off Meeting (KoM) in Venice, Italy, which also included a field visit to Cavallino-Treporti, one of GRACE’s five Demonstrator Regions. The visit offered partners first-hand insights into local climate challenges and ongoing resilience efforts in one of Europe’s most exposed coastal landscapes.
The Project Officer from the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) also joined part of the meeting and the field visit to Cavallino-Treporti.
Addressing the challenges facing remote rural areas
In a context of increasing climate pressures, GRACE focuses on remote rural regions where multiple hazards converge, and adaptation capacity is often limited. The ten participating regions illustrate the diversity and severity of these risks: prolonged droughts and water scarcity in southern Portugal; coastal erosion, storm-surge and saltwater intrusion in the Venetian lagoon; increasing exposure to heavy rainfall winds, and associated mudslides in mountainous areas; rising flood risks in Denmark’s low-lying landscapes; and rapid shifts in snow and ice conditions in northern Sweden.
Replicator regions experience a comparable suite of pressures, including extreme heat and flash floods in Greece, coastal exposure and flooding in Ireland, shifting precipitation regimes in Slovakia, soil degradation in Latvia, and climate-related vulnerabilities further compounded by the war in Ukraine. Together, the Demonstrator and Replicator regions span five distinct biogeographical zones, including Mediterranean, Continental, Atlantic, Alpine and Boreal, reflecting a wide range of socio-economic conditions found across Europe’s remote rural areas. This diversity ensures that GRACE’s solutions are tested under different climatic pressures and governance contexts, strengthening their relevance and transferability to rural regions facing varied adaptation challenges.
In addition, GRACE will involve a group of Observer Regions, engaging public authorities from other remote rural areas that will follow the project’s progress and learn from the Demonstrators. Their participation will support the wider uptake of GRACE’s solutions beyond the core regions.
Solutions co-created with local communities
GRACE seeks to address these interconnected challenges by empowering communities to lead local adaptation processes and by co-creating solutions that respond to the specific hazards each region faces. Through stronger links between science, governance, and public participation, the project will enable rural territories to design and implement measures that are both locally relevant and transferable across Europe
GRACE is built on three pillars that guide how the project works with rural regions to develop and test climate adaptation solutions, from nature-based measures to digital tools and governance approaches. Together, these pillars ensure that innovation is locally grounded, informed by reliable evidence, and strengthened through community skills and participation.
Pillar 1 — Community-Driven Governance and Adaptation Pathways
GRACE places local actors at the centre of decision-making. Through Rural Climate Resilience Groups (RCRGs), the project brings together local authorities, civil society organisations, researchers, citizens, and businesses to identify priorities and co-design solutions. Using the Collaborative Systems Mapping of Sustainable Pathways (CoSMoS) method, regions will develop their own adaptation pathways, ensuring that measures respond directly to the specific climate risks they face.
Pillar 2 — Digital Tools for Evidence-Based Decision-Making
To support regional planning and day-to-day decision processes, GRACE will develop a digital dashboard powered by AI. This tool will integrate climate, environmental, and socio-economic data to help regions assess vulnerabilities, compare scenarios, and track progress. The dashboard will serve both Demonstrator and Replicator Regions, enabling consistent, data-driven evaluation of adaptation options throughout the workplan.
Pillar 3 — Capacity Building and Social Empowerment
Strengthening local skills and social readiness is crucial for long-term resilience. GRACE will deliver tailored training programmes for more than 500 stakeholders and run citizen-focused initiatives involving over 14,000 residents. These activities ensure that communities can not only participate in solution design but also lead implementation, monitoring, and future adaptation efforts.
Rural communities aren’t just vulnerable to climate change, they also have huge potential to drive Europe’s adaptation efforts. With GRACE, we aim to leverage their strengths by working closely with local actors to co-design solutions that are practical, inclusive, and grounded in their everyday realities.
Dr Elisa Furlan, Project Coordinator, CMCC
Expected impact
Over its 48-month duration, GRACE is expected to deliver concrete results aligned with the European Green Deal, the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change, the EU Mission on Adaptation, and the objectives of the EU Rural Pact, strengthening the long-term sustainability, resilience, and attractiveness of rural areas. Specifically, the project will achieve:
Testing and demonstration of adaptation solutions addressing nine major climate risks across five biogeographical regions.
Strengthened governance capacity and social readiness, with at least 15 public authorities committed to adopting GRACE approaches.
New opportunities for green jobs, bioeconomy initiatives, ecotourism, and locally driven innovation.
Deployment of advanced digital tools and improved digital literacy, supporting more equitable access to climate services across rural areas.
Through co-creation, participatory governance, and knowledge transfer, GRACE will embed climate adaptation into local policies and enable remote rural communities to play a central role in Europe’s green, resilient and digital transition.