The Research Executive Agency of the EU spotlights BioAgora’s contributions at COP16 Colombia

22 May 2025 / General News

At the largest global summit on biodiversity, last year’s COP16 Colombia, the conversation on science-policy interfaces and their importance to lasting, planet-wide transformative change was carried forward. Four EU-funded research projects, BioAgora, CO-OP4CBD, RESPIN, Biodiversa+, were at the forefront of these discussions by virtue of the two side events they co-organised at the summit’s EU Pavilion on the topic. More specifically, this provided an occasion for an exploration of the effects of science-based governance on global biodiversity conditions and targets. Further information on the sessions’ content and their publicly available recordings can be found here.

The projects’ participation at COP16 was highlighted by the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency (REA) in a dedicated article on the EU-affiliated initiatives aiming to bridge the gap between science and policy in the domain of biodiversity. The piece categorises all these projects in three separate thematic groups:

  • “nature-based solutions for socio-environmental issues that lead to nature-positive economy”: Here, the NetworkNature initiative and its pursuit of a nature-positive economy through transformative change in society and nature alike are described. 

  • “science-policy symbiosis for a better world”: This category places the aforementioned collaboration between BioAgora, CO-OP4CBD, RESPIN and Biodiversa+ front and centre.

  • “implementing insurance solutions for resilient and sustainable cities”: In this context, the authors single out the NATURANCE project and its efforts to usher in new policy standards for nature-based solutions in urban regions.

  • “engaged communities for sustainable urban ecosystems”: This is the topic at the core of INTERLACE, a research undertaking focused on how community-driven collaboration across continental frontiers can improve city-based ecosystems.

  • “boosting economy through nature restoration”: Last but not least, the article discusses GoNaturePositive! as a project championing the economic benefits and opportunities offered by land and marine ecosystem restoration.

You can access the full overview by REA here. To find out more about how we left our mark in Colombia, you can visit CO-OP4CBD’s dedicated COP16 page.