TwinPolitics

Funder: European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101124903 – TwinPolitics – ERC-2024-STG)

Full title: Digital twin politics: Unlocking the full potential of digital twins for sustainable ocean futures

Time frame: 2024 – 2029

Budget: 2 million

Digital twin technology holds significant promise in developing solutions to mitigate the damage caused by climate change and facilitating the transition to greener alternatives. The European Commission is leveraging this technology to create a digital twin of the ocean (DTO), a highly accurate digital model aimed at facilitating studies, improving decision-making, and providing essential ocean data. The ERC-funded TwinPolitics project seeks to address concerns surrounding the socio-technical aspects of DTOs and their use in national and international contexts. The project aims to investigate current challenges related to development, access, security, legal considerations, and necessary regulations. Additionally, it will develop a methodological approach to address these challenges and ensure the effective use of DTOs.

• Find out more about this project here: https://twinpolitics.eu/

MARCO – BOLO

Funder: European Union under the Horizon Europe Programme, Grant Agreement No. 101082021 (MARCO-BOLO)

Full title: MARine COastal BiOdiversity Long-term Observations

Time Frame: 2022 – 2026

Budget: 7.3 million Euro

Cooperation partners: European marine biological resource centre european research infrastructure consortium (EMBRC-ERIC), Vlaams instituut voor de zee (VLIZ), Helmholtz-zentrum Hereon GmbH (HEREON), E-science european infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research (LifeWatch ERIC), Senckenberg gesellschaft für naturforschung (SGN), Universitetet i Tromsø – Norges arktiske universitet (UiT), United Nations educational scientific and cultural organization (UNESCO), Göteborgs universitet (UGOT), Institutul national de cercetare-dezvoltare pentru geologie si geoecologie marina-geoecoMar (GEOECOMAR), Autoridad portuaria de Sevilla (APS), Universidad de Sevilla (USE), Universitatea din Bucuresti (UB), Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (CNR), Stazione zoologica Anton Dohrn (SZN), Danmarks tekniske universitet (DTU), Ukrainian scientific centre of ecology of the sea (UkrSCES), Centre national de la recherche scientifique CNRS (CNRS), Alfred-Wegener-institut Helmholtz-zentrum für polar- und meeresforschung (AWI), Seascape Belgium (SSBE), Centro interdisciplinar de investigação marinha e ambiental (CIIMAR), Erinn Innovation Limited (ERINN), Helmholtz-zentrum für umweltforschung GmbH – UFZ (UFZ), NORCE Norwegian research centre AS (NORCE), Sorbonne université (SU).

MARCO-BOLO connects existing initiatives, optimising and improving methods, and further innovating technologies to structure and strengthen European marine, coastal and freshwater biodiversity observation capabilities, linking them to global efforts to understand and restore ocean health.

• Find out more about this project here: Home – Marco-Bolo

Biodiversity Austria – International

Funder: Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Climate and Environmental Protection, Regions and Water Management, Republic of Austria

Time Frame: 2024 – 2026

Budget: 200.000 Euro

Cooperation Partners: Biodiversitätshub Österreich

Biodiversity Austria – International acts as national Austrian interface to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). IPBES is the central intergovernmental body for assessing the state of global biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The new interface supports the integration of Austrian expertise in IPBES activities and strengthens political processes at the Austrian level. IPBES processes are  communicated to stakeholders in a targeted manner and IPBES outcomes are processed and condensed to an Austrian level as part of the project to support uptake. Experts from science, political decision-makers and administrative officials are subsequently brought into the discourse. In this way, Biodiversity Austria – International strengthens the ability to act to counter the biodiversity crisis in Austria and supports the protection and sustainable use of biodiversity.

• Find out more here (in German): https://www.biodiversityaustria.at/international/ 

MARIPOLDATA

Funder: European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 804599 – MARIPOLDATA – ERC-2018-STG)

Time Frame: 2018 – 2024

Budget: 1,4 million Euro

MARIPOL-Data was an ERC Starting Grant project running from November 2018 to October 2023. A research team led by the Principal Investigator Dr. Alice Vadrot developed and applied a new interdisciplinary and multi-scale approach to study new forms of power at the intersection between science, and politics. The project used ongoing negotiations on a new international legally binding instrument under the United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) to study these processes in action.

• Find the archive of this project here: https://www.maripoldata.eu/

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