Projects

SELINA – Science for Evidence-based and Sustainable Decisions About Natural Capital

Megvalósítás alatt lévő/Futó projekt

ID: 101060415
Lead researcher: Arany Ildikó
Planned duration:
Amount of support: € 12 213 780 ÖK-ra jutó keret € 121 000
Funding organisation: Európai Unió
Programme: HORIZON.2.6 - Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Projektvezető: Benjamin Burkhard
Projekt vezető intézmény: GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ UNIVERSITAET HANNOVER, Institute of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Summary:

The Horizon Europe Call for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Ecosystems and their Services for an Evidence-Based Policy and Decision-Making programme has awarded the SELINA (Science for Evidence-Based and Sustainable Decisions about Natural Capital) project for funding. The implementation of the project will start in June 2022 and will last for 5 years. Its main objective is to provide methodological support to EU Member States in implementing the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030. Through the supported programs, the European Commission aims to ensure that Member States integrate biodiversity and natural capital into their decision-making processes at all levels. This requires raising awareness of, and attitudes towards, biodiversity, ecosystems and the social and economic values they provide. The Commission also aimed to achieve the EU’s objective of restoring damaged ecosystems and, in this context, to develop definitions, indicators and criteria for achieving or maintaining good ecosystem status. In this way, a deeper understanding of the state of ecosystems and the services they provide can be achieved at EU level, which can be reflected in future policy decisions that affect the state of the environment.
In line with these main objectives, SELINA has undertaken the following activities:
– Detect and answer concrete questions on evidence-based decision-making from stakeholders from science, policy, business and the society;
– Propose and develop indicators and quantification methods for BD, EC and ES to establish effective and traceable criteria of EC and restoration standards;
– Assess how known pressures on ecosystems (i.e. land-use change, BD loss, pollution) interact with pressures of increasing importance (i.e. climate change and invasive species);
– Identify opportunities for how to overcome barriers to effectively implement legislation and policies to reduce pressures and improve EC and sustainable supply of multiple ES;
– Demonstrate through a process of iterative knowledge co-creation and integration, to efficiently inform private and public decision-making; and
– Make the Project outcomes and knowledge generated available open access
The SELINA consortium consists of 45 partner organizations, involving all EU Member States and some international and non-EU partners. Hungary is represented by the Centre for Ecological Research.