BRIDGING MINDS: Winning project from BioAgora’s first Cascade Funding Call is launched

On 23 May 2025, a virtual kick-off meeting took place for the BRIDGING MINDS project. This initiative was recently announced as one of the winning candidacies submitted for BioAgora’s first Cascade Funding Call. 

At its core, the project seeks to improve stakeholders’ ability to understand and navigate biodiversity science-policy-society interfaces (SPSI) in Europe. In particular, a crucial aspiration is to provide engaging training on key (but often overlooked) socio-psychological elements shaping and influencing such SPSIs. This activity type will be provided in online and in-person formats in order to be widely accessible and flexible enough to be used in a wide variety of contexts in which biodiversity boundary spanners find themselves. In that spirit, the biodiversity and social science expertise of the BRIDGING MINDS consortium will be harnessed in a series of webinars covering these key socio-psychological insights. Ultimately, all training elements will be integrated into a massive open online course (including game materials), ensuring their longevity and flexible use beyond the project.

The kick-off meeting itself brought together the following institutional partners: ACTeon (in a coordinating capacity), Producoes Fixe and the Global Nature Fund. On BioAgora’s side, Jiska van Dijk (NINA), Anette Ljosdal Havmo (NINA), Eszter Kelemen (ESSRG) and Kristin Evensen Mathiesen (NINA) were in attendance as well. An introduction to the new project’s mission and its team was provided at the onset of the event, which was followed by a more detailed showcase of the work packages underpinning BRIDGING MINDS. Throughout these discussions, emphasis was placed on collaboration opportunities between the project and BioAgora. The meeting closed with an agreement that BRIDGING MINDS will prepare contact lists for invitations to join the project's forthcoming Living Lab for co-designing training materials. This important endeavour will subsequently be shared and complemented by the BioAgora team, with operationalisation starting from mid-June onwards. 

You can find out more about BioAgora’s Cascade Funding opportunities on this page.