Biodiversity and ecosystem services (Horizon Europe) - One Stage

This destination will mostly support the EU Commission priority ‘Sustaining our quality of life: food security, water and nature’.

The implementation of the EU Green Deal will continue to guide R&I in this destination. R&I will develop knowledge and tools to support the implementation of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 and notably the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, including with the development of nature credits. This Destination will also address the EU proposal for a Directive on soil monitoring and resilience, the EU proposal for a Regulation on a forest monitoring framework and will inform deliberations on EU biodiversity policy after 2030, thus protecting our natural world. Nature-based Solutions are deep-rooted in this Destination, which will support the EU climate adaptation strategy and the EU climate mitigation targets by maintaining or improving natural carbon sinks, since natural ecosystems store large amounts of carbon globally and ecosystems’ carbon sequestration potential is tightly linked to their biological diversity. R&I should particularly assess the ecosystems ongoing ability to sequester carbon and, if necessary, focus more on ecosystems that reliably do so while also providing benefits to biodiversity.

Actions will contribute to the European Ocean Pact, to the European Water Resilience Strategy and to the EU legislative proposal on pollutants in EU waters (update of chemical substances listed for control).

R&I activities for sustainable farming, fishing and aquaculture will be supported in alignment with the Vision for Agriculture and Food, the Vision for Fisheries and Aquaculture towards 2040, as well as with the environmental objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy and the EU Action Plan for the Development of Organic Production. These efforts will enhance biodiversity and climate-resilient farming practices, ensuring the long-term competitiveness of these sectors within ecological boundaries, and foster innovation to drive sustainable food production.

R&I actions under this Destination will encourage international cooperation in line with the global approach on R&I, contributing to EU international biodiversity commitments, notably those taken under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which defines targets for the medium term (2030) and goals for the long term (2050). This Destination will also support the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement). Support to processes of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will be continued.

Complementarities and synergies will be ensured with the activities supported by the co-funded partnerships Biodiversa+, Water4All and the co-funded partnership on Agroecology, and LIFE projects, particularly on nature restoration and protection.

Expected impact: Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway contributing to “putting biodiversity on a path to recovery, and protecting and restoring ecosystems and their services”, and more specifically to one or more of the following expected impacts:

• Knowledge on biodiversity status and trends and drivers of biodiversity loss is improved;
• Innovations, methods, pathways, models and tools are available and used to protect healthy and resilient ecosystems and to restore degraded ones, ensuring the continuous provision of ecosystem services, including for adaptation and/or mitigation to climate change;
• The ongoing biodiversity crisis and its consequences, notably on ecosystem functioning and their services, and the need to monitor, protect, restore and sustainably use biodiversity are better understood to better benefit the whole society in an inclusive way;
• Policymakers and stakeholders, all relevant economic sectors and society are aware and well informed of relevant challenges and opportunities of biodiversity protection, restoration and sustainable use, leading to better implementation of the biodiversity legislation and better valuation of ecosystem services, leading to transformative change towards a nature positive economy;
• Farmers, foresters, land and sea managers, fishers and aquaculture producers have access to key information, and test and implement biodiversity-friendly management practices, while safeguarding food and water security and fostering competitiveness, demonstrating the long-term sustainability of these sectors;
• Progress towards international commitments worldwide on biodiversity is made.

Topics for 2026 (one stage) with submission deadline on 17 September:

• HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-01: Understanding and tackling the decline of insects
• HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-02: Developing methods to assess the presence, functions and sensitivity of groundwater ecosystems
• HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-03: Pushing the frontier of knowledge and conservation action for deep sea ecosystems
• HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-04: Ensuring continuous effectiveness of protected areas in conserving habitats and species while facing intensifying drivers of biodiversity loss
• HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-05: Advancing integrated scenarios and prediction models for informing transition to a nature positive society
• HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-06: Boosting agrobiodiversity for food security and sustainable competitiveness

Find the full work programme draft of Cluster 6 "Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment" for 2026-2027 here.