Programme Category
Programme Name
Identifier Code
Call
Summary
The European Biodiversity Partnership Biodiversa+, co-funded by the European Commission, aims to produce actionable knowledge to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in line with its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda. As part of its Flagship Programme “Supporting protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems across land and sea”, Biodiversa+ has launched the BiodivConnect joint call for research proposals on the “Restoration of ecosystem functioning, integrity and connectivity.”
This call supports innovative and interdisciplinary research that can be directly integrated into nature restoration practices, promoting well-connected and resilient ecosystems and habitats. It places emphasis on long-term sustainability, future-proofing restoration efforts, and ensuring cross-scale relevance — from local and regional to cross-border and global levels — including the evaluation of restoration outcomes.
The scope of the call is broad, encompassing the restoration of biodiversity in all types of ecosystems and habitats (terrestrial, marine, coastal, and freshwater) and in all world regions. It supports high-quality research and innovation projects adopting holistic, systemic, and integrated approaches that combine ecological, social, economic, and policy dimensions.
Projects may focus on a wide array of aspects such as development of indicators, restoration scaling methods, socio-ecological interactions, or alignment of environmental policies and regulations. Ultimately, they are expected to demonstrate academic excellence while having a strong societal and policy impact, bridging the gap between science, policy, and practice to achieve effective, sustainable, and inclusive biodiversity restoration.
Detailed Call Description
To adequately address the key challenges of nature restoration, it is essential to support knowledge exchange and capacity building across disciplines and societal sectors, and acknowledge, appreciate and integrate multiple forms of knowledge. This call is arranged into three main topics that partly overlap. Project proposals can address one or more of these main topics.
- Topic 1: Setting restoration targets and measuring success.It will address the need for coherent and operational restoration targets and measurements of success in terms of ecosystem functioning, integrity and connectivity. Projects are expected to consider shifting baselines and integration of ecological, cultural and social contexts, with objective-based or reference-based approaches.
- Topic 2: Scaling and transferability of nature restoration efforts. It will address the need for a better understanding of the possibilities and methods for meaningful and effective scaling and transferability of nature restoration efforts. There are many examples of successful local restoration efforts across the world, however the scale of the biodiversity crisis necessitates advancements in approaches and processes for reproducing successful efforts across different socio-economic and environmental contexts.
- Topic 3: Long-term sustainability of restoration efforts.It will address the need for long-term sustainability of restored species, habitats and ecosystems, including resilience to climate change and other pressures. Given future environmental and societal changes, it will not be possible to rely solely on historical and current datasets and models to predict likely pathways to successful restoration. There is also a need for advanced predictive modelling and anticipatory strategic foresight based on policy learning, as well as the development of entirely novel approaches to restoration, experimental approaches with high risk tolerance, and/or open-ended restoration efforts such as rewilding.
At least 36 funding organisations from 29 countries are contributing to the funding of this joint call (see the updated list of countries and participating Funding Organisations) on call website.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
The indicative total call budget is €40.000.000, including the EC contribution. The total indicative budget for each Funding Organisation are available at the list in the table 1, pages 21 -24 at the call document). Please note that Funding Organisation may have defined maximum requested budget per project.
The reserved budget for Greece is €1.000.000.
The reserved budget for Czechia is €1.000.000. Maximum funding (requested budget) per project (Czech part): €170.000.
Each participant in a funded project will be preferentially funded by his or her Funding Organisation(s) participating in the call. The additional funding provided by the EC for the funded project will be distributed through the EC-eligible Funding Organisations.
The aim of the call is to fund medium size projects (with a total budget of typically €1.200.000 – € 1.500.000 on average; but note that this constitutes an indication rather than a formal limit).
The project duration is 3 years. Projects are expected to act as transnational project and not as a mosaic of national projects; to this end, as far as possible Partners should participate in the project for its entire duration. However, as needed, position of some team members can be requested for only part of the project’s duration, as long as at least one member of each Partner remains involved for the whole project duration.
Thematic Categories
- Environment and Climate Change
- Natural and Cultural Heritage
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
Eligibility for Participation
- Educational Institutions
- NGOs
- Non Profit Organisations
- Other Beneficiaries
- Private Bodies
- Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
- Semi-governmental organisations
- State-owned Enterprises
Eligibility For Participation Notes
The call is open to any eligible research organisations. National / regional eligibility criteria apply to research entities and for private sector organisations (profit and non-profit).
The main applicant (project coordinator) must be employed by an eligible organisation in 1 of the countries participating in the call.
Compliance with Funding Organisations’ eligibility criteria and rules (e.g. eligible budget items) is mandatory; applicants are strongly advised to approach their respective Funding Organisation Contact Point to make sure they respect all the eligibility criteria and rules.
All national / regional eligibility and rules and associated information including the Funding Organisation Contact Point are available here on the Biodiversa+ website.
Instructions regarding general eligibility, submission, evaluation criteria and other relevant information are also published in the official Call Announcement Documents.
In order to be eligible, transnational research consortia must be composed of eligible research partners from minimum 3 different countries financially participating in the Call and requesting support from minimum 3 different Funding Organisations; including at minimum 2 different EU Member States or EU Associated Countries.
Greece participates in this call and the funding organisation is the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation of the Hellenic Republic.
Czechia participates in this call and the funding organisation is the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic.
Call Opening Date
Call Closing Date
EU Contact Point
For any questions on the general Call process and proposal submission, please contact the Call Secretariat: biodiversa.cs@agencerecherche.fr
For technical questions regarding the Electronic Proposal Submission System (EPSS), please contact the EPSS technical helpdesk: Taavi Tiirik: epss.biodiversa@g.etag.ee