Free-living honeybee colonies in Europe, solar farms, urban transformation labs, marginal saltlands and healing forests will be at the centre of interest for five Polish research teams that have just won funding under BiodivNBS, a call for proposals organised by the BIODIVERSA+ European Biodiversity Partnership. Their total budget is more than PLN 5.8 million.
In the third call announced by the BIODIVERSA+ partnership thus far, researchers working at Polish research centres could apply for grants to finance international and interdisciplinary research projects in biodiversity protection, including both basic and applied research. Specifically, the subject of the BiodivNBS call was “Nature-Based Solutions for biodiversity, human well-being and transformative change”. Nature-Based Solutions are defined as actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services and biodiversity benefits.
Stage 1 of BiodivNBS attracted 183 pre-proposals; at stage 2, experts evaluated 108 full proposals. Funding was awarded to 34 projects with a total budget of more than EUR 40 million.
Successful projects that include Polish research teams:
- FREE-B: Studying FREE-living honey Bee colonies in Europe: nature-based solutions to safeguard diversity, ensure resilience, and promote transformative change in beekeeping. Polish PI: Dr hab. Andrzej Oleksa, University of Bydgoszcz. Awarded grant: PLN 851,405.
- Solar farms: an opportunity to recover biodiversity in farmlands. Polish PI: Dr Marcin Tobółka, Poznań University of Life Sciences. Awarded grant: PLN 520,940.
- Enhancing Urban Sustainability for Environmental Quality and Human Well-being through Nature-Based Solutions Transformation Labs. Polish PI: Dr hab. Barbara Natalia Sowińska-Świerkosz, University of Life Sciences in Lublin. Awarded grant: PLN 1,200,480.
- Salty symphonies: bringing back biodiversity in marginal saltlands. Polish PI: Prof. Dr hab. Katarzyna Hrynkiewicz, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Awarded grant: PLN 1,434,720.
- Planetary Health by Healing Forests as Nature Based Solution. Polish PI: Dr Paweł Mateusz Sowa, Medical University of Białystok. Awarded grant: PLN 1,769,248.
About BiodivNBS
BiodivNBS was launched in September 2023 and was open to international consortia composed of at least three research teams from at least three participating countries. The PI of the Polish team had to hold at least a PhD degree. The call was divided into two stages. At stage 1, Polish teams, in tandem with their international partners, had to submit joint pre-proposals, which were evaluated by an international team of experts. The best teams were then invited to submit full proposals for evaluation by the same experts at stage 2.
The BiodivNBS call was organised by 41 research-funding agencies and organisations from 34 countries. The Polish teams will be co-funded by the National Science Centre and the European Commission. Projects could be planned over 3 months, with no caps on the budget of any single project.