Over the last decades water governance has drastically evolved, progressively moving from a resource management silo approach to the Integrated Water Resources Management. The validation of innovative and cross sector governance is the forthcoming step to face the multi-dimensions societal challenges such as the climate change impact, population growth at the global scale and ensure a safe cross-sectorial water access and uses at the local scale. The next chapter of water governance still needs to be framed with the clear challenge of involving equally all the stakeholders including the citizen to allow transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability. The governance is foreseen as one major lever to support and orientate water policy and sectoral policies impacting the water sector. Water Energy Food Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus needs to be valued to embrace all the water uses in a sustainable manner across generations. The main objective of InnWater (Promoting social INNovation to renew multi-level and cross sector WATER governance) is to provide a set of digital tools and services (that will be gathered in InnWater Governance Platform) to support tailored multi-level and cross-sector water governance, associated with economic and financial mechanisms to support EU green deal transition while ensuring water systems sustainability. The InnWater project will deliver a governance assessment matrix, quintuple helix and citizen (trust) engagement framework, WEFE Nexus economic and resources allocation simulation including household water tariff and environmental costs, a self-sustaining governance community composed of 5 pilot sites in FR, UK, HU, SP, IT addressing different water challenges, a set of raising awareness and training tools, the identification of replication opportunities in at least 14 EU basins and a set of policy, regulation and economic recommendations to support EU policy implementation and new orientations.

If biodiversity is to be placed back on a path to recovery, new tools and knowledge are required to redirect financial resources from destructive economic activity towards nature-positive investment. The financial system consists of interacting and dynamic actors who value certainty (rules and governance structures) and efficiency (outcome transparency and low monitoring costs). We aim to create a unifying framework and technology that creates the enabling conditions for nature-positive investments. Activities that protect and restore biodiversity (such as nature-based solutions) are frequently unique, multi-actor efforts carried out at a local scale with positive, but complex outcomes. We resolve this by establishing a categorisation of nature based solutions (NBS) alongside a menu of good governance structures and a library of stakeholder engagement. This will draw on expertise and best practice in natural capital and economics to streamline decision making and accelerate transaction completion by standardising the investment process and creating the enabling conditions for large-scale finance. To accelerate nature-positive business models, we create a data analytics and underwriting engine to advance conventional project appraisal and risk assessment and account for and model expected outcomes. We will assess and validate our approach across diverse real-life case studies (learning sites). Our findings and approach will initiate a twin green and digital transition that resolves transaction complexity and creates the enabling conditions for large-scale investment that are required if the EU is to achieve its biodiversity goals. Our outcomes will identify remaining gaps in the Taxonomy and support policy forming through evidence-based recommendations and we will co-design, develop and establish pathways for skills and knowledge accelerators for the European financial services industry.

The overarching objective of Connecting Nature is to position Europe as a global leader in the innovation and implementation of nature-based solutions. The project partners will form a community of cities fostering peer-to-peer, transdisciplinary capacity-building between front-runner, fast-follower and multiplier cities. Connecting Nature will co-develop the policy and practices necessary to scale up urban resilience, innovation and governance via nature-based solutions. An open innovation ecosystem approach bringing together city governments, SMEs, academia and civic society will be used to co-produce usable and actionable knowledge in all cities. Connecting Nature will provide the reference framework for a new generation of urban nature-based solution processes and empower transitioning ambassadors who will globalise this approach through a strategy targeting multiplier cities. This novel approach, coupled with the high capacity of the consortium, makes Connecting Nature an exciting prospect. In addition, linking all open-sourced data to the Oppla platform will ensure perpetuation beyond the end of the project.

One of the major challenges relating to the management of Europe’s forests is to balance the provision of distinct forest ecosystem services with broad societal demands. If markets and existing governance arrangements fail, forest owners and managers struggle to meet societal needs. There is a necessity to explore new approaches to connect profitable forest management with changing societal demands. Against this background, innovative mechanisms (IM), including novel policies and business models, have the potential to align ecosystem services supply and demand. SINCERE will, first, systematically map the existing knowledge and practical experiences with IM at the European scale. Second, it will, in a joint effort of practice partners and researchers, design, implement and subsequently evaluate a complementary set of innovation actions that explore novel IM in different regional contexts. These actions encompass a broad spectrum of forest ecosystem services (e.g. biodiversity, climate change mitigation, water supply, recreation), governance mechanisms (e.g. new business models, ‘reverse auctions’ with forest owners, participatory governance) and regional settings (e.g. intensively managed commercial forests in Finland versus little-managed forest land in Spain). Third, a Learning Architecture will connect these innovation actions across countries to incentivize cross-case fertilization and learning between research and practice. Finally, practice partners, policy makers and researchers will jointly draw lessons learnt from the innovation actions, including the upscaling of successful IM to be replicated elsewhere. The project will also push for innovations at the interface between policies and on-the-ground IM, and will deliver concrete suggestions for a coordinated European policy framework that supports IM. Target group-specific communication and dissemination activities will ensure SINCERE’s impact throughout the entire project duration.

Forests are key elements of the European bioeconomy. To enhance provision of their ecosystem services (ES), harnessing Forest Genetic Resources (FGR) is essential. OptFORESTS will support the conservation and sustainable use of FGR by: i) conducting research on the selection of diverse forest reproductive material (FRM), including mixtures, adapted to future climates, ii) fostering sustainable use and resilience of natural forests, iii) helping expand and diversify nursery production, iv) developing nature-based solutions (NBS), tools (e.g., expanded Information Systems) and cultural trajectories to promote forest biodiversity and ES, and v) demonstrating biodiversity restoration solutions. To do this, OptFORESTS will carry out genetics, modelling, stakeholder surveys, expert panels and socioeconomic analyses. OptFORESTS will evaluate adaptive and biomass traits in existing common gardens and newly-established next-generation ones, conserve and utilise unique tree lineages for ecosystem restoration and management, model future adaptation of trees at different life stages and conduct low-input breeding. This will be complemented by studying the effects of silviculture and landscape heterogeneity on genetic diversity and developing new silvicultural options for genetically mixed forests, which will be implemented via training software (marteloscopes) and long-term demonstration plots. To enable optimal supply of diversified FRM, OptFORESTS will assess the European nursery sector, forecast future FRM needs, develop plant production technology and promote cooperation between nurseries. To ensure the uptake of NBS, they will be co-designed with local and EU-level stakeholders and a cost-benefit and gap analysis of key socio-economic, governance and policy issues will be developed. Finally, the OptFORESTS tailored communication strategy will be instrumental in achieving long-term impacts supporting international and EU policy under the European Green Deal.