BiodivERsA

Launched in 2005, BiodivERsA's major goal is to build a dynamic, sustainable platform to identify the most pressing strategic issues for biodiversity. It supports and promotes excellence in biodiversity research that is relevant to biodiversity policy and management, at a European transnational scale. Every year, the network determines its own research agenda based on already existing national, European and international agendas, ensuring that the most relevant topics are prioritised. Based on its common agenda, BiodivERsA launches calls for research proposals emphasizing scientific excellence and policy relevance. Funding for biodiversity research projects are awarded on a competitive basis.

The collaborative structure of BiodivERsA's joint calls not only facilitates effective transnational research projects, but also allows national agencies to close gaps in certain areas of expertise, as well as avoid the kind of wasteful overlaps in project content that can occur when national teams work independently.  To further strengthen the European Research Area on biodiversity and ecosystem services, BiodivERsA is involved in several other activities, ranging from research mapping and programming, to stakeholder engagement, dissemination of project outputs and knowledge brokerage.

JNCC is a partner within BiodivERsA, and was a Task Leader for Work Package 2 (The European biodiversity research landscape and science-policy integration), during the second phase of BiodivERsA. Specifically, JNCC led on Task 2.1: 'Develop guidelines to support research project teams in stakeholder engagement', and produced the BiodivERsA Stakeholder Engagement Handbook in 2014.  To help inform the Handbook, JNCC organised and hosted a BiodivERsA workshop on stakeholder engagement in April 2013. Further details can be found on the BiodivERsA Stakeholder Engagement Workshop web page.

Further information can be found on the BiodivERsA website and in the BiodivERsA movie.