Capacity building and awareness raising on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
Projects under this priority are intended to raise the fundamental rights knowledge of relevant actors. Building on the central role of civil society organisations and human rights defenders, funded projects could involve national, regional and local authorities as partners (co-applicants), with the aim of supporting joint capacity building and awareness raising efforts.

The projects funded under this priority could focus on one or several of the topics below:

• Rights enshrined in the Charter and awareness of the Charter’s scope of application. In accordance with its Article 51, the Charter is applicable to Member States only when they are implementing EU law. Given the specific scope of application of this instrument, unlike that of international human rights agreements, and considering the increasing number of references to the Charter in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, there is a specific need to promote an understanding of when the Charter applies, i.e. when EU law is being implemented, and of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter. Relevant projects could therefore focus on the scope of application of the Charter and/or on the contents of an individual Charter right and/or several rights.

• Protecting fundamental rights in the digital age. To follow up on the Annual Charter Report 2021 on fundamental rights in the digital age, the aim of the priority is to protect fundamental rights by strengthening accountability for the use of automation where rights are at stake. This includes approaches for addressing and combatting bias and multiple/intersectional discrimination based on gender and on other grounds including ethnic and racial origin, caused or intensified by the use of artificial intelligence systems. Projects could aim to develop guidelines (including measures that ensure gender sensitive implementation), technical benchmarks and tools, including for algorithm-audits. Projects are expected to develop a concrete tool or a benchmark process in an area of the applicant’s choice with demonstrated relevance for fundamental rights, without prescribing the area or the type of the tool (e.g. it could be software, a benchmark data set, a simulation environment, a procedure).

The following activities can be covered:

• Awareness raising and capacity building activities aiming to increase the knowledge of civil society organisations in particular, but also human rights defenders and other key partners, on the use of the Charter, especially on its scope of application and the rights it contains;
• Facilitating cooperation between civil society organisations and other key actors on enforcing the Charter, such as NHRIs, equality bodies, Ombuds institutions and Member State authorities (at national, regional and local level);
• Training and train-the-trainer activities for professionals (such as experts, lawyers and legal advisers, communicators, policy and advocacy advisers, professionals from national, regional and local authorities), including through operational guidance and learning tools;
• Mutual learning, exchange of good practices, development of working and learning methods, including mentoring programmes that may be transferable to other countries, methods for fundamental rights impact assessments and for stakeholder consultation;
• Analytical activities, such as sex-disaggregated data collection and research, and the creation of tools or data bases on fundamental rights (e.g. databases of jurisprudence);
• Communication activities, including dissemination of information and awareness raising about the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter and redress mechanisms, relevant to the priorities of the call;
• Development of procedures, guidelines, technical benchmarks and tools, including for algorithm-audits, to help to protect fundamental rights, including gender equality and non-discrimination, where automation is used.