The European Biodiversity Partnership, Biodiversa+, launches on 8 September 2022 a new call for research to improve the monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem changes at a transnational level for science and society.

The European Biodiversity Partnership, Biodiversa+, launches on 8 September 2022 a new call for research to improve the monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem changes at a transnational level for science and society.

Biodiversa+ is a consortium made up of a total of 74 entities that gives continuity to the ERANETS of the Horizon 2020 programme, one of the key actions of the European Union’s Biodiversity Strategy 2030 under the European Union’s framework programme for research and innovation (I+I) for the period 2021 -2027, Horizon Europe. It has the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge as one of the Spanish funding partners together with the State Research Agency (AEI) and the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI).

The call has a global endowment of more than 40 million euros, will address all areas of action (terrestrial and marine, including freshwater and wetlands) and will focus on three non-exclusive themes; innovation and harmonization of methods and tools for the capture and management of biodiversity monitoring data; address knowledge gaps in status, dynamics and trends to reverse biodiversity losses and make use of available monitoring data. The Biodiversity Foundation will support Spanish entities whose projects are selected by the European Biodiversity Partnership.

The application process will be carried out in two phases. The first phase begins at the beginning of November 2022, when pre-proposals can be submitted in English. Afterwards, an evaluation of these will be carried out, and the pre-proposals that are selected and move on to the second phase, will have until April 2023 to send a complete proposal.

To be eligible, the consortium submitting the research proposal will have to form teams with partners from at least three countries participating in the call (including a minimum of two Member States of the European Union or associated countries). To join a partner or a project you can consult this Biodiversa+ partner search tool .

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria, taking into account, on the one hand, criteria such as suitability to the scope of the call, innovation of the research and impact during the first phase (pre-proposal). On the other hand, to its scientific excellence, quality and efficiency in implementation and impact both at the level of governance and society, and the approach applied to facilitate stakeholder engagement in the second phase (full proposal). In both phases, it is expected that the added value of the international component of the submitted proposal will be clearly presented.

Likewise, in order to start preparing the call, the Collaboration Manual for Biodiversa participants (information on collaboration in funded projects); the Biodiversa Governance Guide (information on the importance of governance in research proposals, and to facilitate stakeholder engagement in the field of governance); and the Biodiversa Citizen Science Toolkit (information on how to involve citizens in research projects).

In addition, on September 20, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. (CEST) an informative webinar will be organized for potential applicants. To participate in this online event, you can register at the following link.

All information related to this call (instructions, eligibility and evaluation criteria, etc.) will be published in the official announcement of the call in early September 2022. You can find more information about the European Biodiversity Partnership, Biodiversa+, at the following link.

A GLOBAL PROJECT

Biodiversa+ was established in 2021 as action 81 of the European Union’s 2030 Biodiversity Strategy and is developed jointly by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG R&I) and the Directorate-General for the Environment (DG ENV). Its purpose is to provide a global and multidisciplinary platform that connects local, national and European research and innovation programmes with a common goal: to return European biodiversity to the path of recovery by 2030. 

To date, a total of 34 countries, including Spain, have expressed interest in participating in this call. Among them are; Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Côte d’Ivoire, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia and Turkey.

The updated list of potential participating countries will be published on the Biodiversa+ website.