Seven networks have already been selected based on their relevance to the EU’s biodiversity strategy:
Pollinators and pollination services support agriculture and provide other benefits to ecosystems and people, yet they are threatened by multiple pressures caused by human activities. This KEN will mobilise actionable knowledge from the scientific and end-user community to link to EU policy objectives and improve the mainstreaming of pollinators and pollination across sectors.
Nature-based solutions are key actions to achieve the ambitious goals of the EU BDS 2030, especially in urban areas where the newly introduced Urban Nature Plans should coordinate their implementation. By collaborating with ongoing initiatives to mobilise, collect, and synthesise knowledge around urban nature-based solutions, the KEN contributes to identify and fill existing knowledge and capacity gaps for supporting both planning processes at the local level as well as EU-wide monitoring.
The Freshwater KEN has the main goal to provide a research-based assessment of the state of freshwater biodiversity management in the EU as well as its practical and policy implications.
It will also facilitate collaborations with relevant stakeholders in the field.
Landscapes are dynamic and multifunctional, with balancing the multiple values, interests of actors and sectoral policy objectives being crucial for the holistic preservation of sustainable landscapes. This KEN takes a multifunctional and pluralistic ‘scape’ approach to ensure land degradation neutrality by protecting and restoring a coherent network of natural areas, as well as agricultural and forest ecosystems.
The Marine KEN focuses on policy commitments of the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the Marine Action plan, such as to 1) legally protect at least 30% of its seas and strictly safeguard at least a third of the EU’s protected areas and to 2) substantially reduce the negative impacts of fisheries on sensitive marine habitats and species.
The marine KEN has built its topical network and is now focusing on three main functions, capacity-building, answering requests & feedback into policy frameworks.
The Monitoring KEN activates the existing network of key institutions, EU projects, and experts in the field of biodiversity monitoring. It thus works closely with the established networks of EuropeBON and Biodiversa+, also benefitting from policy-relevant links outside the EU with IPBES. The tasks within the KEN are linked to the Habitats and Birds Directives, the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Nature Restoration Regulation.
At this Network, we offer the opportunity to enable pathways to increase the impact of research by bringing together projects and initiatives to address key policy needs identified by the European Commission. The main objective is not only to mobilise information from existing or expected project outputs, but also to explore synergies and trade-offs across and between projects to support the Science Service for Biodiversity.
Transformative change represents a profound shift from current societal modes of production and consumption, lifestyles, economies and markets, governance and paradigms. It has been widely recognised as critical to safeguarding life on Earth. This Transformative change KEN focuses on mobilising knowledge, data and collective learning that contributes to transformative change processes and solutions that address indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and multiple sustainability issues. It further aims to leverage the amplification and scaling-up potential of a ‘network-of-networks’ approach at science-policy-society interfaces. It will do this by expanding and engaging existing networks, such as the Transformative Change Cluster of the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency, the Eklipse transformative change community, and several transition research communities. The KEN will consider various root causes and transformative pathways for societal reorganisation. One of the particular interests of the KEN is to enable discussions on transforming social and economic systems beyond the imperative of continuous growth.