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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BiodivScen (Promoting and implementing joint programming at the international level to reinforce research on the development of scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem services)

Teaser

Summary

Current knowledge and conventional awareness-raising have largely proven insufficient to tackle issues of biodiversity and ecosystems degradation. In this context, scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ESS) can play a key role both in informing policy makers and practitioners and raising awareness on biodiversity issues for the general public, as it has been the case for climate change.
In the last decades, research on biodiversity and ESS demonstrated a capacity to develop scenarios. However, a major question now is the extent to which these scenarios represent the main relevant processes determining the fate of biodiversity and ESS over the next decades, and the extent to which these scenarios are relevant for decision making.

By networking 27 funding agencies from 24 countries from Europe and other continents, BiodivScen aims to promote and support coordinated international research on scenarios of biodiversity and ESS. It will strengthen research programmes coordination and support research, with the ultimate aim to provide policy makers and other stakeholders with adequate knowledge, tools and practical solutions to improve the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems.

BiodivScen main objectives are to:
Coordinate the research agendas of major European and international research funders to agree on shared research priorities related to scenarios of biodiversity & ESS;
Design & implement an ambitious joint call for research proposals focused on the development of scenarios of biodiversity & ESS;
Promote & support research collaboration across national borders and across disciplinary boundaries, in order to build capacity, overcome fragmentation and have a lasting effect on the international research community and landscape;
Encourage & support dialogue and collaboration between academia & research stakeholders, and more particularly stakeholder engagement in the funded research projects, in order to increase the impact of research on policy & practice;
Ease rapid & efficient uptake of funded research results by the IPBES for its future assessments, and by other relevant initiatives;
Reinforce open access to data & data sharing;
Evaluate the added value of a longer-term collaboration between BiodivERsA & the Belmont Forum.

Work performed

BiodivScen officially started in October 2017. At the early stage the governance, procedure and administrative framework were organized: the BiodivScen Secretariat (hosted at FRB) and the Group of Program Coordinators (GPC) composed of representatives of every agency involved in the project were set up.

During this first period,two types of activities were carried out: activities directly related to the COFUND call for research projects (Work Packages 1 to 5), and additional activities (WPs 6, 7 and 8).

Activities related to the call
The call for projects relies on documents developed jointly with the partners of the call, describing its modalities, criteria and objectives, agreed upon before the launch of BiodivScen. The call was officially launched on 2 October 2017.
As an effect of the strength of the biodiversity research community and the communication work conducted preliminarily to the launch of the call, a large number of pre-proposals were submitted in December 2017. In the end, 135 eligible full proposals were to be evaluated and ranked.
The evaluation process was organized by the Theme Programme Office (TPO; the French ANR supported by the Brazilian FAPESP) between January and June 2018, relying on a Panel of Experts (PoE) and external reviewers. The PoE met in June 2018 and agreed on a final ranking of proposals. In late June 2018, the funders reached a final funding agreement, strictly following the ranking established by the PoE: 21 projects were considered for funding, for a total amount of â‚¬28 million, including funding from the EC.
This is a great success: the amount actual spent to support research is â‚¬3 million higher than the announced reserved budget, as several agencies accepted to increase their budget. This allowed for a satisfactory success rate (ca. 16%) despite the high number of applications.
The projects started between November 2018 and April 2019 for a maximum duration of 3 years.

Additional activities
The Task on internationalization of research on biodiversity scenarios started in March 2018. Since then, the Working Group (WG) made progress on the mapping of research collaborations between different regions of the world, including the European Research Area (ERA), and more generally between countries, relying on a set of keywords that was carefully defined according to the GPCâ€™s recommendations.
During the period, the WG on open access to data incorporated national practices as well as the Belmont Forum data principles to its line of work and focused its efforts on tailoring its hand-on advices on data management and the organization of a Data Management Workshop for funded projects. This is currently leading to the production of a guidance document for funded projects and for applicants of future calls.
The science/society and science/policy interfacing of research projects has been at the heart of the work of another WG. An implementation plan for the uptake of research results, finalized in November 2018, presents the objectives and priorities of the BiodivScen partners in terms of stakeholder engagement and organizations to be targeted.
Potentials for collaboration with IPBES were explored through meetings with the Technical Support Unit on Scenarios and Models as well as the Secretariat in April and May 2018. These discussions resulted in a draft cooperation framework designed around the main functions of the IPBES.

Final results

BiodivScen aims at aligning research agendas in the area of scenarios development for biodiversity and ESS, while enhancing the significance and relevance of these scenarios for decision-making.
The 21 projects that were selected for funding demonstrate potential policy/societal relevance and stakeholder engagement. They implement recommendations made by the IPBES in its methodological assessment on scenarios and models of biodiversity and ESS and fill identified knowledge gaps (notably by developing multiscale and multidriver scenarios and considering uncertainty in the developed scenarios). As such, it is expected that the scenarios developed in BiodivScen funded projects feed future IPBES assessments and be appropriate to support decision-making. The activities related to the uptake of the results of the research projects are also intended to generate links with new stakeholders, notably collaborations with socio-economic sectors identified as relevant to the research.
Moreover, the results of the call are a success with regards to international collaboration, with a large majority of the funded projects being trans-continental, and all continents being represented. As an action launched jointly by the Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA, BiodivScen allows steps toward stronger links inside the ERA, but also toward collaboration between the ERA and other continents. The additional activities developed are foreseen to enhance the international vision, notably through a mapping assignment destined to assess the international research collaborations.
Ultimately, the BiodivScen program will result in a more credible and harmonized voice in terms of research on biodiversity scenarios and the use decision-makers should make of it.