Natura 2000 Award – Selection & evaluation

Eligibility

Applications must be submitted using the online application form by the official deadline: 23:59 CET on 30 September 2026.

All applications are screened for their eligibility. Any entity or group based in the EU is eligible to apply (with a few exceptions). Applications must explicitly refer to one or more Natura 2000 sites. They can be written in any official EU language. All efforts are made to assess the applications in their original language, although in some cases it may be necessary to translate the application.

Applications by multiple applicants are allowed, but one of the applicants must be designated as the lead applicant. Applicants must clearly present tangible results achieved in the past five years.

More information on the eligibility criteria can be found here. 

Selection – new criteria for the 8th edition!

All eligible applications are assessed by a team of independent evaluators. The team evaluates applications against four key criteria (effectiveness, durability, costs & benefits and replicability) and four bonus criteria (originality, stakeholder involvement, socio-economic benefits and cross-border cooperation). Applications providing detailed qualitative and quantitative information are likely to score higher.

The outcome of the selection phase is a shortlist of finalists, established through a ranking of the evaluation scores in each category.

More information on the 2027 selection criteria can be found here.  

Evaluation team

Details of the 8th edition evaluation team will be published in due course.  

Decision

Based on the shortlist of finalists, a high-level jury chooses the winners of the five category awards. In a parallel and independent process, the winner of the Citizens' Award is chosen by a public vote. The six winners are announced at the Award Ceremony.