In line with the EU biodiversity strategy, a successful proposal will develop knowledge and tools to understand the role of transformative change for biodiversity policy making, finance and business leaders, address the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, and initiate, accelerate and upscale biodiversity-relevant transformative changes in our society.

The projects should address all of the following outcomes:

• Inform approaches tackling biodiversity loss and implementing nature-based solutions that consider how behaviour, lifestyles, religious, societal and cultural values shape the choices of producers and consumers, institutions and their policy decisions.
• The motives behind broad societal changes and transitions are taken up in the design of relevant policies, communication and engagement campaigns and other actions.
• Leverage points in those sectors with the greatest impact on biodiversity are addressed, as the role of decisive actors (civil society, education institutions, policy makers, financing and business leaders, retailers) and their inter-sectorial consultation is known. This includes human rights and due diligence across economic value chains, as well as the role of employment patterns for a just transition.
• The understanding of the biodiversity inter-dependencies of the SDGs has improved; IPBES and IPCC are strengthened by the contribution of European research and innovation. Approaches, tools and knowledge influence policies at the adequate level on transformative change for biodiversity – the key elements for this change are delivered by the portfolio of cooperating projects (of which these projects form part).

Proposals should engage with civil society organisations – in particular those working on gender, diversity, equity and inclusion –, social partners, policy makers, financing, industry and business leaders, and retailers and value-led (such as religious and cultural) institutions when addressing the role of enabling players for transformative changes in biodiversity actions, exemplified at relevant levels from local to global. They should identify and test measures to overcome barriers for behaviour changes in biodiversity action, considering ethical questions in behavioural economics, e.g. linked to future generations. This should acknowledge the interdependence of the climate and biodiversity crisis.

The proposals should explore intersectionality approaches and consider interlocking systems of power between gender and other social categories and identities such as religion, ethnicity and race (including migrants and refugees), social class and wealth, gender identity and sexual orientation and disability to better address access to and ownership of nature-based solutions.

The proposals should analyse and address the impact of intrinsic vs economic/utilitarian values. They should include an estimation of the importance of engineered vs haphazard policy making factors at relevant levels, and specify and address effects of processes affecting adherence to democracy, voting campaigns, science denialism^[1].

The proposals should build their analysis upon the synergies of multiple Sustainable Development Goals, to deliver direct and indirect biodiversity benefits, and of the role of biodiversity in reaching the set of Sustainable Development Goals, considering the importance of behaviour, lifestyle, religious and cultural values.

The proposals should produce case studies and collect good and failed examples that could inform these transformations^[2] and inform and inspire transformative change through learning, co-creation and dialogue.

Proposals should include specific tasks and provide sufficient resources to develop joint deliverables (e.g. activities, workshops, as well as joint communication and dissemination) with all projects with all projects on transformative change related to biodiversity funded under this destination, and should use existing platforms and information sharing mechanisms relevant for transformational change and on biodiversity knowledge^[3]. Furthermore, cooperation is expected with the European partnership on biodiversity and the Science Service (HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-19: A mechanism for science to inform implementation, monitoring, review and ratcheting up of the new EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 (‘Science Service’). Proposals should show how their results might provide timely information for major science-policy bodies such as the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity on project outcomes. Cooperation is expected with projects ‘HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-20: Support to processes triggered by IPBES and IPCC’ and ‘HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-2022-01-10: Cooperation with the Convention on Biological Diversity’.

This topic should involve the effective contribution of social science and humanities disciplines.

[1] Cooperation with Horizon 2020 Green Deal Call topic 10.2 is encouraged

[2] Using results from previous projects and initiatives at EU and global level (see also project POLICYMIX and studies such as http://www.biodiversitybarometer.org/ or https://portfolio.earth/) and referring to, and critically assessing, the understanding of transformative change in IPBES and GBO-5, EEA

[3] BISE, Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity, BiodivERsA, Oppla, NetworkNature and their joint work streams