Being one of the main actions of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the European Biodiversity Partnership (Biodiversa+) will coordinate research programmes between EU and its Member States and Associated Countries, mobilising environmental authorities as key partners for implementing biodiversity research and innovation, along with ministries of research, funding organisations, and environmental protection agencies (75 organisations from 37 countries). Biodiversa+ has five overarching objectives: (1) improve monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe (status and trends); (2) generate actionable knowledge to tackle the direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss; (3) expand and improve the evidence base, and accelerate the development and wide deployment of NbS to meet societal challenges across Europe; (4) make the business case for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity; and (5) ensure efficient science-based support for biodiversity policy making in Europe. Biodiversa+ will meet these objectives by (i) setting up a pan-European network of harmonized monitoring schemes, building on existing national/regional monitoring schemes, creating capacity for setting up new schemes, and feeding into the EC Knowledge Center for Biodiversity; (ii) coordinating research programmes between the EU and its Member States and associated countries, thereby ensuring the long-term pan-European research agenda is co-created and implemented; (iii) contributing science-based methodologies to account for and possibly value ecosystem services and the natural capital, and to assess the dependency and impact of businesses on biodiversity and (iv) better linking of R&I programmes to the policy arena, providing greater input to policy making and improving the assessment of policy efficiency. Doing so, Biodiversa+ will help ensure that, by 2030, nature in Europe is back on a path of recovery, and by 2050 people are living in harmony with Nature.

Many of the European and world's ecosystems undergo degradation of terrestrial, aquatic and transitional ecosystems with nMany of the European and world's ecosystems undergo degradation of terrestrial, aquatic and transitional ecosystems with negative impacts on biological diversity and people’s livelihoods. In this context, research actions are needed to ensure the protection and/or restoration of ecosystems and their biodiversity whilst meeting the socio-economic, political and cultural needs of current and future generations. By networking 34 funding agencies from 27 countries from Europe & other continents, BiodivRestore aims to promote coordinated international research on conservation and restoration of degraded ecosystems and their biodiversity, in all environments, including a focus on aquatic systems. It will strengthen research & research programmes coordination to support science-based evidence for the implementation of a relatively wide range of European and International policy initiatives and therefore act for better management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems and their biodiversity. This will notably be achieved by launching one call for proposals co-funded by the European Commission, as well as a knowledge hub to support the implementation of nature restoration policies, promoting research collaboration across national borders & disciplines and supporting dialogue & collaboration between academia & stakeholders, and stakeholder engagement in research in order to increase the impact of research on policy & practice. BiodivRestore will also contribute to networking, clustering and capacity building activities for the research community in the field and enhanced synergy coordination between RDI funding programmes (national, EU, International) in the relevant research fields. Lastly, BiodivRestore will contribute to reinforce the links between BiodivERsA and the WATER JPI, to enhance their collaboration for issues at the crossroad of water resources, aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity sustainable management.

Democratic politics and governance in Europe are facing turbulent times. This not only affects the institutions of government, but the wider structures and processes that make democratic societies work. In order to respond to them, we require an understanding of the nature, causes and consequences of these challenges, as well as assessments of how governments, political parties, interest groups and other societal actors can effectively address them. With this proposal for a research programme on the topic of governance, NORFACE offers a timely investigation of the precise nature of the turbulence, but also how European states can negotiate it and develop strategies to enhance the quality of democratic politics and governance. The proposed programme will focus on themes derived from five critical challenges to democratic governance and the responses to them: inequality and redistribution, the evolving politics of threat, democratisation of information, shifting identities and representation, and the changing authority of institutions. Through collaborative cross-disciplinary research based on cross-national, historical and/or longitudinal comparison, the programme will develop theoretically ambitious and empirically founded insights to enrich the knowledge base upon which to build new institutions, policies and practices and reshape existing ones for a reflective, inclusive and innovative society. NORFACE (New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe) is a collaborative partnership of national research funding agencies in the area of social and behavioural sciences. Since 2004, NORFACE has been committed to leading and developing opportunities for social scientists in Europe by developing thematic joint research programmes; building capacity for transnational and interdisciplinary research; advocating for the societal value of the social sciences; and sharing excellence in research management practices and procedures.