Living labs driving transformative change via knowledge integration and inclusive governance

This destination will mostly support the EU Commission priority ‘Sustaining our quality of life: food security, water and nature’.

The implementation of the EU Green Deal^[1] will continue to guide R&I in this destination. R&I will develop knowledge and tools to support the implementation of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030^[2] and notably the EU Nature Restoration Regulation^[3], including with the development of nature credits as proposed in the Nature Credits Roadmap^[4]. This destination will also address the EU proposal for a Directive on soil monitoring and resilience^[5], the EU proposal for a Regulation on a forest monitoring framework^[6] and will inform deliberations on EU biodiversity policy after 2030, thus protecting our natural world. Nature-based Solutions are deep-rooted in this destination, which will support the EU climate adaptation strategy^[7] and the EU climate mitigation targets by maintaining or improving natural carbon sinks, since natural ecosystems store large amounts of carbon globally and ecosystems’ carbon sequestration potential is tightly linked to their biological diversity. R&I should particularly assess the ecosystems ongoing ability to sequester carbon and, if necessary, focus more on ecosystems that reliably do so while also providing benefits to biodiversity.

Actions will contribute to the European Ocean Pact^[8], to the European Water Resilience Strategy^[9] and to the EU legislative proposal on pollutants in EU waters^[10] (update of chemical substances listed for control).

R&I activities for sustainable farming, fishing and aquaculture will be supported in alignment with the Vision for Agriculture and Food^[11], the Vision for Fisheries and Aquaculture towards 2040^[12], as well as with the environmental objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy^[13] and the EU Action Plan for the Development of Organic Production^[14]. These efforts will enhance biodiversity and climate-resilient farming practices, ensuring the long-term competitiveness of these sectors within ecological boundaries, and foster innovation to drive sustainable food production.

R&I actions under this destination will encourage international cooperation in line with the global approach on R&I, contributing to EU international biodiversity commitments, notably those taken under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)^[15], which defines targets for the medium term (2030) and goals for the long term (2050). This destination will also support the Paris Agreement^[16], the Sustainable Development Goals^[17] and the United Nations agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement)^[18]. Support to processes of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)^[19] will be continued.

Complementarities and synergies will be ensured with the activities supported by the co-funded partnerships Biodiversa+^[20], Water4All^[21] and the co-funded partnership on Agroecology^[22], and LIFE^[23] projects, particularly on nature restoration and protection.

The destination supports unlocking the unique assets for research and innovation of the EU outermost regions, in line with the EU strategy for outermost regions^[24].

Expected impact: Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway contributing to “putting biodiversity on a path to recovery, and protecting and restoring ecosystems and their services”, and more specifically to one or more of the following expected impacts:

• Knowledge on biodiversity status and trends and drivers of biodiversity loss is improved;
• Innovations, methods, pathways, models and tools are available and used to protect healthy and resilient ecosystems and to restore degraded ones, ensuring the continuous provision of ecosystem services, including for adaptation and/or mitigation to climate change;
• The ongoing biodiversity crisis and its consequences, notably on ecosystem functioning and their services, and the need to monitor, protect, restore and sustainably use biodiversity are better understood to better benefit the whole society in an inclusive way;
• Policymakers and stakeholders, all relevant economic sectors and society are aware and well informed of relevant challenges and opportunities of biodiversity protection, restoration and sustainable use, leading to better implementation of the biodiversity legislation and better valuation of ecosystem services, leading to transformative change towards a nature positive economy;
• Farmers, foresters, land and sea managers, fishers and aquaculture producers have access to key information, and test and implement biodiversity-friendly management practices, while safeguarding food and water security and fostering competitiveness, demonstrating the long-term sustainability of these sectors;
• Progress towards international commitments worldwide on biodiversity is made.

[1] The European Green Deal - European Commission

[2] Biodiversity strategy for 2030 - European Commission

[3] Regulation - EU - 2024/1991 - EN - EUR-Lex

[4] EUR-Lex - 52025DC0374 - EN - EUR-Lex

[5] EUR-Lex - 52023PC0416 - EN - EUR-Lex

[6] Proposal for a Regulation on a Forest Monitoring Framework - European Commission

[7] EU Adaptation Strategy - European Commission

[8] The European Ocean Pact - European Commission

[9] Water resilience strategy - European Commission

[10] EUR-Lex - 52022PC0540 - EN - EUR-Lex

[11] Vision for Agriculture and Food - European Commission

[12] EUR-Lex - 52025DC0075 - EN - EUR-Lex

[13] Key policy objectives of the CAP 2023-27 - European Commission

[14] Organic action plan - European Commission

[15] Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

[16] The Paris Agreement | UNFCCC

[17] THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development

[18] BBNJ Agreement | Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction

[19] IPBES Home page | IPBES secretariat

[20] Biodiversa +

[21] Water Security for the Planet

[22] Agroecology Partnership

[23] LIFE - European Commission

[24] COM(2022) Putting people first, securing sustainable and inclusive growth, unlocking the potential of the EU’s outermost regions

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• society and decision-makers are provided with enhanced governance frameworks that integrate knowledge across ecosystems (terrestrial, freshwater and marine) and/or societal challenges, helping overcome institutional barriers, power asymmetries, and policy fragmentation to accelerate transformative change towards a nature positive economy and support EU climate goals;
• practitioners and public authorities co-create and have access to living labs as innovation hubs for testing, and scaling both governance and socio-economic models that integrate diverse knowledge systems, actively engage stakeholders and support bottom-up and participatory approaches.

Scope:

As nature positive actions gain momentum and biodiversity is increasingly integrated into policies, it is essential to ensure governance frameworks can support large-scale, coordinated implementation. Relevant stakeholders should be actively involved in shaping new solutions adapted to different and local contexts.

Living labs have the potential to empower a green transition and a transformative change towards nature positive society and economy by developing solutions in a co-creative manner and involving actors in real life settings to achieve large-scale impact and foster collaboration between sectors and communities.

Proposals should align with key policies including the European Green Deal and the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the Paris Agreement, the European Climate Law and the One Health approach.

Proposals should:

• establish living labs as real-world testing environments to experiment with policy solutions, stakeholder engagement, and new economic models, while strengthening collective capacities and well-being, and identifying and overcoming barriers that limit participation in living labs;
• develop inclusive, intersectional and adaptive governance strategies that foster systemic transformative change, based on both biodiversity and socio-economic metrics and emphasising equity and sustainability.

In particular, actions are expected to:

• conduct a comprehensive review and analysis of policies related to both direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, with the aim of identifying conflicting or competing objectives and informing more coherent, nature positive policy frameworks;
• analyse the legal, financial and institutional barriers to inclusive governance in Europe, including the assessment of political and economic obstacles and of active strategies by actors and develop proposals to pilot and test innovative policy instruments, such as citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgeting and, if and when relevant, nature credits as proposed in the Nature Credits Roadmap^[1], to foster transformative change;
• develop multi-level governance models and policy proposals to integrate all relevant nature positive actions (including protection and restoration of ecosystems, Nature-based Solutions, circular economy, sustainable bioeconomy, regenerative agriculture, agroecology, agroforestry, bioremediation, etc.) into all relevant EU policies and strategies in a synergetic and coherent way;
• identify relevant existing EU funded communities of practices, such as the Nature-based Solutions hubs, the circular economy hubs and the adaptation hubs, and group them per ecosystem or societal challenge;
• set-up living labs to co-develop enabling pathways for transformative change and test them to ensure positive impacts on the ground, drawing on best practices (including emerging nature positive actions), identifying knowledge gaps and addressing research and innovation needs in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders;
• develop digital tools to synthesise and visualise diverse knowledge sources and create decision-support systems for inclusive governance, in view to inform all stakeholders about all existing nature positive actions per ecosystem or societal challenge and to propose the best options in terms of both biodiversity and socio-economic gains for a specific and/or local context (e.g. surface area, available budget, main challenge, specific regional area).

Proposals should address Area A: living labs per ecosystem (marine, freshwater, terrestrial (including agriculture, forestry, cities)) or Area B: living labs per societal challenge (climate change, water, food, health, pollution, spatial planning). The area (A or B) should be clearly indicated on the application.

Proposals should ensure close collaboration with the other project selected under this topic. They should also offer training for policymakers, community leaders, and researchers on co-governance and knowledge integration and develop educational materials and ensure coordination and exchanges between all living labs. Proposals should adopt interdisciplinary approaches and ensure policymakers, business leaders and stakeholders co-create, experiment, and validate new solutions in an open, user-centred way.

Solutions should be adapted to the environmental, socio-economic, and cultural contexts of each living lab, considering both cultural and natural heritage. Scaling and transferability challenges should be addressed through collaborative approaches combining scientific knowledge with local expertise. In this respect, particular attention could be paid to the specific characteristics of the outermost regions. The gender dimension should also be integrated.

Proposals must implement the multi-actor approach, involving a range of stakeholders, including when relevant farmers, foresters and land managers, fishing and aquaculture communities, spatial planners and landscape architects, tourism actors, water governance bodies, business leaders, energy producers, local authorities, NGOs and youth organisations, to ensure that the knowledge and needs from various sectors are integrated and the results are impactful.

Proposals should seek to address knowledge gaps identified by IPBES assessments and, if relevant, provide recommendations to policymakers. They should build on existing knowledge from and ensure complementarity with other relevant EU-funded projects under Horizon Europe Work Programmes^[2], including Biodiversa+ and NetworkNaturePLUS, and foresee appropriate resources to ensure close cooperation with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD) and its Science Service.

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines to collect and validate both technical and socio-economic data.

[1] EUR-Lex - 52025DC0374 - EN - EUR-Lex

[2] EU-funded projects leading the way to transformative change for biodiversity - European Commission, https://erc.europa.eu/projects-statistics/mapping-erc-frontier-research/frontier-research-transformative-change and https://www.biodiversa.eu/2024/06/11/2024-2025-joint-call/