Odbor medzinárodnej spolupráce informuje

BiodivERsA is pleased to announce the launch of its 2018-2019 transnational call for research proposals on “Biodiversity and its influence on animal, human and plant health”.

17 funding organisations from 12 countries are joining this call and have provisionally reserved more than 9 million Euros for this call:

Austria, Belgium (including specific participation of Wallonia and Flanders)^#, Bulgaria^#, Estonia^#, France (including specific participation of Région Guadeloupe^★ and Région Réunion^#), Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Romania^#, Slovakia, and Switzerland.

# Participation pending final decision (please consult the BiodivERsA website for an updated list of participating countries and regions)

^★ Region Guadeloupe may allow the participation of teams from the Caribbean basin

SCOPE OF THE CALL

This call aims at supporting transnational research projects jointly addressing issues at the nexus of biodiversity and animal, human and/ or plant health (see figure below) across the different relevant spatial, and temporal scales in an effort to support evidence-based decision-making. Projects addressing only biodiversity issues or only health issues will not be considered within the scope of the call.

The Call addresses the following major themes:

• Relationship between biological diversity and animal, human and/or plant health: effects and underlying mechanisms
• Understanding and predicting the integrated effects of global change factors on biodiversity-related health issues
• Valuing/qualifying biodiversity benefits to animal, human and plant health, and promoting health-friendly biodiversity status as well as biodiversity-based health status

In addition, the intention is also to fund proposals specifically focusing on biodiversity-health relations in European overseas (for areas eligible to this call). In this case, applicants have to address the above-mentioned theme(s), but including a European overseas dimension in term of the issues addressed, models/systems/areas covered, and stakeholders considered in their project. The objective here is that projects would involve research teams from both ORs and OCTs and mainland.

TYPE OF RESEARCH FUNDED

This call will include two actions, supporting two different types of research projects:

• Action A will support collaborative research projects, gathering different research teams generating new knowledge in particular based on the production of new primary data ;

Action B will support research synthesis projects gathering individuals forming a working group which perform research and answer research questions using existing data sets. These research projects will not collect or produce new primary data; the core activity of these projects being synthesizing and/or analysing existing datasets (synthesizing concepts and ideas is also eligible). Note that these projects differ from systematic reviews or knowledge synthesis which are based on a synthesis of publications and reports.

Please note that Funding Organisations can participate in Action A or B only, or both. Please check in which Action your Funding Organisation is involved here.

ELIGIBLITY CRITERIA

Scientific teams are invited to form transnational research consortia comprising:

• FOR ACTION A: research partners from minimum 3 countries participating in Action  A;
• FOR ACTION B: researchers from minimum 5 countries participating in Action B.

Proposals will be evaluated according to criteria of scientific excellence and policy relevance and societal impact (which includes stakeholder engagement). For more information on the objectives and possible approaches for stakeholder engagement in research projects, please check the BiodivERsA Stakeholder Engagement Handbook and the new BiodivERsA Guide on Policy relevance of research.

A two-step process will apply, with a mandatory submission of pre-proposals at the first step and submission of full proposals at the second step. Pre-proposals and full proposals (to be written in English) must be submitted electronically with the Electronic Proposal Submission System (EPSS). The link to the EPSS will be available on the BiodivERsA website.

Please note that the individual Partner or Group Member in a project must comply with the eligibility criteria and rules of their funding organisation. Please consult these rules and contact your Funding organisation Contact Points (FCP) to check your eligibility before submitting a proposal.

We draw your attention on the fact that compliance to funding organisation eligibility rules is mandatory – proposals that do not meet these criteria will be declined without further review.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information on the call, please consult the BiodivERsA website.

You will find there the complete announcement of opportunity (including detailed research priorities for the call), detailed rules and procedures of the call including evaluation  criteria and the template of pre-proposal and full proposal forms.

For specific questions related to the criteria and rules of your funding organisation, please consult your Funding organisation’s rules and contact your Funding Organisation Contact Point.

For general information on the call, please contact the relevant Call Secretariat:

• FOR ACTION A:

Sophie GERMANN, sophie.germann@agencerecherche.fr

• For ACTION B:

Turgut ORMAN, turgut.orman@tarim.gov.tr

& Claire BLERY, claire.blery@fondationbiodiversite.fr