Biodiversa+

Biodiversa+ is the European Biodiversity Partnership, a network of European research funders and ministries that develops programming and funding cooperation on biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe. Its specific objective is to connect science, policy and practice and increase the societal impact of research. The Research Council of Finland is a member of Biodiversa+ through the Scientific Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment, which became a full member of the network in 2016. Membership means that the Research Council of Finland can provide more opportunities for Finnish researchers in terms of international funding and networking and support national and international biodiversity forums of importance to Finland.

Biodiversa+ has five main objectives:

1. improve monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe
2. create an evidence-based, practical knowledge base to tackle the current biodiversity crisis and its drivers
3. strengthen the development, use and evaluation of nature-based solutions and other similar means
4. explore the joint opportunities of biodiversity and business
5. ensure efficient science-based support for policymaking on biodiversity in Europe.

The Biodiversa+ partnership (2021–2028) was launched in October 2021, as the first partnership under Horizon Europe. It benefits from the participation of 74 actors from 36 countries. The Finnish participants are the Research Council of Finland and the Ministry of the Environment. The total budget of the partnership is around 800 million euros, the majority of which will go directly to funding research projects.

The Scientific Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment has so far granted a total of around 4.3 million euros for 28 Finnish projects selected in the four previous Biodiversa+ calls. The Scientific Council also co-funded the recent Biodiversa+ BiodivMon call on improved transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change for science and society.

Find out more about Biodiversa+.