BioAgora project

Science is important in informing policy. However, there is a disconnect between decision-makers and access to research-based knowledge on biodiversity. To shrink this gap, the EU-funded BioAgora project will develop the science pillar of the EU’s Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD). It is an initiative aimed at providing decision-makers with research-based knowledge on biodiversity in all sectors of society. As a platform, the KCBD facilitates communication and exchange between scientists, policymakers and other stakeholders. The project will analyse the existing landscape of science-policy interfaces in Europe and engage with a range of actors to cocreate new ways of bridging the gap between science, practice and policy.

Main objectives

Despite improved understanding of the need for science to inform biodiversity related policy making and the rich field of science-policy interfaces (SPIs) there remains a gap in ensuring that all decision makers across all societal sectors have direct access to research-based knowledge when planning, budgeting and deciding on actions that have an impact on local, national, EU and global biodiversity. BioAgora will develop a Science Service for Biodiversity (hereafter referred to as Science Service), which responds to the present gaps and future needs in SPIs and provides the science pillar of the EU’s Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD). It will channel the entire landscape of EU biodiversity science from monitoring to meta-analyses and communicate this knowledge through two-way platforms to EU institutions and the broader community. To do this, the project will use ongoing processes of SPIs across Europe and beyond, as knowledge exchange networks, to address the most urgent needs identified for the Science Service. BioAgora will go beyond the state of the art by co-creating new ways of bridging the gap between science, practice and policy and use this as a basis for the Science Service’s development for future needs. To do this, it will 1) analyse the existing landscape of SPIs, assess their policy tools and the current biodiversity knowledge held in Europe, 2) engage with a broad range of actors –those already established ones and those not yet fully integrated within the landscape, as well as the users of SPIs; 3) form the Science Service governance structure and systems model along the projects span by testing it in real life; 4) provide capacity building for the EU community of decision makers to become empowered for transformative change for biodiversity. BioAgora will deliver a functional and responsive Science Service, capable of providing a one-stop-shop for fit-for-purpose materials and tools which enable decision makers to secure biodiversity and sustainability transformation.

Main results

Despite improved understanding of the need for science to inform biodiversity-related policy making and the rich field of science-policy interfaces (SPIs), there remains a gap in ensuring that decision makers across all societal sectors have direct access to research-based knowledge when planning, budgeting and deciding on actions that have an impact on local, national, EU and global biodiversity. BioAgora will develop a Science Service, which responds to the present gaps and future needs in SPIs providing the science pillar of the EU’s Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD). The Science Service aims to ratchet up the EU biodiversity commitments, starting with the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (BDS 2030), by orchestrating science-policy interactions within the EU. It will channel the entire breadth of EU biodiversity science, from data collection to meta-analyses, into actionable knowledge and communicate this knowledge through two-way platforms to EU institutions and the broader community. BioAgora will go beyond the state of the art by co-creating new ways of bridging the gap between science, practice and policy and use this as a basis for the Science Service’s development for future needs. BioAgora has strong ambitions to develop inclusive and transformative functions for the future Science Service. We have actively engaged with the Commission and KCBD (JRC) in order to build a Science Service that will accommodate the requests from policy. We also aim for a Service that serves requests from other societal actors in a context-sensitive way. We have also assessed the diverse networks and actors and started engaging with them. We have worked through four demonstration cases, namely Freshwater, Marine, Nature-Based Solutions, and Pollination, by building the topical networks around them, and testing the framework of functions. We have started to set up the ethical infrastructure for the Science Service that would ensure application of just practices and the plurality of knowledge systems we are engaging. We have explored the capacity gaps in the SPI to be able to direct the capacity building activities in the most effective way.

BioAgora

Main objectives

Main results

Website and resources

All projects