The European Commission has launched a call for innovative biodiversity projects to receive grants worth almost €200 million as part of a 2023 programme.

Under its Horizon Europe scheme, the Commission funds research and innovation projects for a greener and more sustainable continent, and has also opened up the programme from Dec. 22 to biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of a submission period that lasts until March 28.

There are 18 different tenders for grants within this category spanning marine and terrestrial ecosystems with funding pathways focusing on specific challenges, such as noise and light pollution, channelling finance into biodiversity projects, and sustainable agriculture.

Proposals should set out a credible pathway that ensure that biodiversity is back on a path to recovery, and ecosystems and their services are preserved and sustainably restored on land, inland water and at sea through improved knowledge and innovation, according to a work programme document published earlier in Dec. 2022.

Overall, €184 million of the 2023 budget will be assigned across the 18 categories, and €30 mln of next year’s budget.

The document lists six areas of focus:

• “Direct drivers of biodiversity decline,
• Planning and management of protected areas,
• Biodiversity, ecosystem services and natural capital will be mainstreamed in the society and economy,
• Practices in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture will be developed and improved,
• Biodiversity research and support policies and processes will be interconnected,
• The biodiversity and health nexus will be understood, in particular at the level of ecosystems.”

Across all Horizon Europe tenders for the 2023 work programme that spans seven other sectors, almost €900 mln is available.

📢#HorizonEU 2023 Cluster 6 calls for proposals are open

There are €890million available to fund innovations that support #biodiversity, #sustainable #foodsystems, #circulareconomy, protection of land, #ocean & #water

Apply between 23 March & 12 April
➡️https://t.co/UOY9cFtCZP pic.twitter.com/GBQVzd6VV3

— EU green research (@EUgreenresearch) January 3, 2023

At the end of 2022, EU environment ministers expressed concern over the level of finance needed and that national contexts be fully taken into account when meeting targets.

By Roy Manuell – roy@carbon-pulse.com