Organized actors at the biodiversity science-policy-society interface

This database was developed in the context of the Deliverable 2.1 of the BioAgora project 'Developing the Science Service for European Research and Biodiversity Policymaking' (https://bioagora.eu/). BioAgora is a collaborative European project funded by the Horizon Europe programme (Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, grant agreement No. 101059438). The project's main outcome is intended to be the development of a Science Service for Biodiversity, the principal EU mechanism to connect research and knowledge on biodiversity to the needs of policy making through a continuous dialogue. The ultimate goal of BioAgora and of the Science Service is to support the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and more broadly the sustainability transition required by the EU Green Deal. The BioAgora project was launched in July 2022 for a duration of 5 years. It gathers a Consortium of 22 partners, from 13 European countries, led the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke). Partners represent a diversity of actors coming from academia, public authorities, SMEs, and associations. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 

In order to develop the database, a thorough desk search was conducted to compile an extensive, albeit not exhaustive, list of organizations operating at the science-policy-society interface in the context of biodiversity and sustainability. In collecting the list, we focused on actors operating at EU level, although we also included particularly relevant international, regional or national organized actors. The desk search built upon the work already developed in the context of two pan-European projects, funded by the Seventh framework programme of the European Community: ‘Developing a Knowledge Network for European Expertise on biodiversity and ecosystem services to inform policy making and economic sectors (KNEU, 2010-2014, grant 265299) and ‘Establishing a European Knowledge and Learning Mechanism to Improve the Policy-Science-Society Interface on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ (Eklipse, 2016-2020, grant 690474). The two above-mentioned projects preceded the BioAgora project in that they aimed at understanding and improving the effectiveness of the biodiversity science-policy(-society) interface in Europe. Such projects had thus already compiled extensive databases of relevant organizations in Europe (including national and international actors, in addition to EU level actors), and quantified the relevance of such organizations based on votes cast by project members and based on interviews with key organizations. The database developed through the desk search conducted was further refined with suggestions for relevant organizations provided by BioAgora’s participants and by the representatives of the organizations interviewed during the other steps of the data collection. The data collection processes started in September 2022 and was updated until June 2024. Note that the categories for network types (Columns E-F) are not mutually exclusive. For further details about the development of the database please see Deliverable 2.1 (https://bioagora.eu/deliverables/).