Strengthening pathways to alternative socio-economic models for continuous improvement of biodiversity
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See in 5 min if you're eligible for Strengthening pathways to alternative socio-economic models for continuous improvement of biodiversity offering max €30.0M funding💰 Funding Details
Funding Description
What the Grant Finances
* Research & Innovation Activities (RIA): Fundamental and applied research, piloting, demonstration, scenario building, policy modelling, Generative AI tool development, and living-lab style stakeholder engagement that accelerate pathways to alternative socio-economic models benefiting biodiversity.
* Capacity-Building & Training: Skills development for researchers, policy makers, businesses, civil-society actors (especially in valuation methods, natural-capital accounting, AI and participatory governance).
* Multi-actor Co-Creation: Workshops, citizen assemblies, foresight exercises, co-design sessions with farmers, foresters, regional authorities, NGOs, Indigenous communities, financial actors, etc.
* Data, Tools & Infrastructure: Open-access databases, harmonised indicators, dashboards, AI models, policy toolkits, serious games, valuation calculators and decision-support systems.
* Networking & Clustering: Synergy actions with Biodiversa+, BioAgora, KCBD, past Horizon projects, EU missions, SDG platforms, IPBES processes.
* Communication, Exploitation & Dissemination: Publications (open access), policy briefs, MOOCs, policy labs, hackathons, and replication guidance for Member States and global partners.
* Ethics & Safeguards: Activities ensuring environmental, social, ethical and gender-responsive safeguards, incl. compliance with the non-deterioration principle.
Key Funding Details
* Programme / Call / Topic: Horizon Europe Cluster 6 — HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-BIODIV-08.
* Type of Action: HORIZON-RIA (Research & Innovation Action)… 100 % of *eligible* direct costs + 25 % flat-rate indirect costs.
* Indicative EU Contribution per Project: up to €30 million (no minimum; one large or several medium-size projects may be funded).
* Project Duration: typically 48–60 months.
* Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at start/end: approx. TRL 2-5 (concept to pilot validation).
* Biodiversity & Climate Tracking: 100 % of expenditure counts toward EU biodiversity target and largely toward climate target.
Eligibility Snapshot
* Consortium: ≥3 legal entities from ≥3 different EU Member States or Horizon-Europe-Associated Countries, each independent of the others.
* Disciplines: Mandatory integration of SSH (economics, sociology, ethics, education) + ecological / climate / data science + digital (AI, HPC) expertise.
* Multi-Actor Approach: End-users (policy makers, business, citizens) must be partners or formally involved.
* Legal & Financial Capacity: All partners must pass standard Horizon due-diligence checks.
* Geographical Focus: Primarily Europe, but international cooperation (esp. with CBD/IPBES partners) is encouraged and can be funded if the third-country entity is eligible or funded by own resources.
* Ethics & Gender: Gender Equality Plan (for public bodies, HEIs, research orgs) obligatory; ethics self-assessment covering AI, data, Indigenous knowledge, etc.
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📊 At a Glance
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🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages
EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities of Call HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-BIODIV-08
1. Single Market Reach – 450+ Million People, One Regulatory Space
• Pan-European uptake of alternative socio-economic models (ASMs) for biodiversity can be piloted in multiple Member States and, once proven, replicated across the entire EU without the need for national re-certification.
• Companies, cooperatives and social enterprises involved can immediately offer new biodiversity-positive products/services (e.g. nature-based insurance, biodiversity credits) in all 27 markets, maximising return on R&I investment.
• The common customs union and public-procurement directives allow rapid commercial roll-out of monitoring tools, valuation software and Generative-AI-based decision aids developed in the project.
2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange
• Horizon Europe mandates multinational consortia, giving applicants privileged access to Europe’s strongest centres of excellence (e.g. JRC, Biodiversa+, BioAgora, KCBD, IPBES authors).
• Living labs in contrasting biogeographic regions (Boreal, Mediterranean, Atlantic, Continental, Alpine) generate comparative evidence for transferring ASMs to diverse socio-ecological contexts.
• Joint development of pan-EU data spaces on natural capital links national statistical offices, Eurostat and the European Environment Agency, enabling richer socio-economic modelling than any single country could achieve.
3. Alignment with Flagship EU Policies
• Delivers on the European Green Deal and its Just Transition dimension by embedding social equity in ASM pathways.
• Directly underpins the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, Nature Restoration Law, EU Taxonomy, CAP eco-schemes and the Kunming-Montréal GBF monitoring framework.
• Contributes to the twin green-digital transition and leverages Digital Europe/EuroHPC resources for Generative-AI modelling, meeting the Commission’s push for AI-powered public-good applications.
4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits
• EU-level work on valuation indicators and safeguards can feed into CEN/CENELEC standards and future delegated acts under the Taxonomy Regulation, ensuring legal certainty for investors across the Union.
• Coordinated evidence can inform State-aid guidelines and cohesion-policy rules, accelerating mainstreaming of biodiversity criteria into regional funds.
• A common methodological backbone (non-deterioration principle, multilevel governance) prevents fragmented national interpretations and reduces compliance costs.
5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem & Digital Infrastructure
• Links with European Digital Innovation Hubs, Copernicus DIAS and ESA’s Φ-lab enhance remote-sensing and AI-training datasets for biodiversity monitoring.
• Collaboration with EIT Climate-KIC & EIT Raw Materials accelerates commercialisation pathways and entrepreneurial education for biodiversity-positive models.
• Researchers gain from open-science mandates (EOSC) and the Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity, ensuring FAIR data and long-term curation.
6. Funding Synergies & Leverage
• R&I results can move quickly into demonstration via LIFE Strategic Integrated Projects, Interreg CBC pilots or CAP Horizon Grants.
• InvestEU’s sustainability window and the EIB’s Natural Capital Financing Facility provide scale-up capital once business models are validated.
• Synergies with Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”, Partnership Water4All and Agroecology allow stacking of budgets and shared dissemination platforms.
7. EU-Scale Deployment & Impact Potential
• A single project can cover >70 % of the EU’s terrestrial and marine ecoregions, ensuring statistical power and policy relevance.
• Co-creation with EU networks (Committee of the Regions, ENRD, Copa-Cogeca, Eurocities) ensures rapid uptake by thousands of municipalities, farmers and forest owners.
• Outcomes feed directly into the EU Semester and National Biodiversity Strategy (NBSAP) revisions, guaranteeing high-level policy traction.
8. Strategic Consortium-Building Advantages
• The multi-actor requirement encourages inclusion of SSH institutions, SMEs, NGOs and public authorities from cohesion countries, improving access to the 15 % Widening budget and boosting evaluation scores on excellence & impact.
• Partners in Associated Countries (e.g. Western Balkans, Ukraine) widen geopolitical reach and align EU external action with GBF implementation.
9. Risk Mitigation & Compliance Benefits
• EU-wide ethical frameworks (GDPR, AI Act, Horizon Europe ethics rules) provide a clear operational envelope for Generative-AI pilots, avoiding divergent national rules.
• Common procurement and IPR provisions under the Model Grant Agreement simplify contractual negotiations and protect foreground knowledge across borders.
10. Long-Term Sustainability & Legacy
• Project data and tools will be institutionalised through the Science Service for Biodiversity (SSBD), guaranteeing post-grant maintenance.
• Standardised metrics developed can become mandatory reporting elements under CSRD/ESRS, locking in market demand for project outputs.
• Building capacity in multiple Member States simultaneously ensures a critical mass of trained professionals, fostering a self-reinforcing EU competency cycle on biodiversity-positive ASMs.
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Bottom Line: Competing for this Horizon RIA unlocks a unique combination of market, regulatory, financial and knowledge advantages that exist only at EU level. Leveraging these assets multiplies the probability that alternative socio-economic models for biodiversity move beyond experimentation to mainstream adoption—first across Europe, and, through EU global leadership, worldwide.
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