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HORIZON EUROPE TOPIC · Cluster 6 · Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Integrating Remote Sensing and in-situ observations of Biodiversity, towards a fully interoperable observation and data framework

HORIZON-CL6-2027-01-BIODIV-01 — the expected outcomes as checkable statements, what evaluators look for in this topic, and the conditions that shape the proposal.

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ForthcomingRIA · lump sumDeadline 22 September 2027around EUR 5 million per project

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TopicHORIZON-CL6-2027-01-BIODIV-01
StatusForthcoming
CallHORIZON-CL6-2027-01 — Call 01 - single stage (2027)
DestinationBiodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2026-27)
Type of actionResearch and Innovation Actions · lump sum
Opening20 April 2027
Deadline22 September 2027
Budgetaround EUR 5 million per project · 2 projects expected · EUR 10 million in total
Part B page limit45 pages (standard application form; check your call)
TemplateWork Programme 2026–2027 application form

Expected outcomes

Projects should contribute to all of the expected outcomes. The topic says: “Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:”

  1. EO1 advancing robust, policy-relevant ecosystem assessment, nature protection and restoration planning activities, and biodiversity trend prediction based on fit for purpose data, thus supporting EU biodiversity and climate objectives.
  2. EO2 strengthened capacity of researchers, practitioners and decision-makers to improve biodiversity monitoring practices and address knowledge gaps via the integration of data and observations across sensors and platforms, ranging from omics-based data (genomic, transcriptomic, metabolomic), various in-situ to satellite-based Earth observation data.
  3. EO3 enhanced usability of in-situ datasets as training and validation resources for statistical, machine learning and advanced AI-based approaches, in support of applications such as habitat classification, ecosystem mapping and biodiversity trend prediction.

Expected impacts named in the destination

The wider, long-term effects the destination seeks. Your outcomes feed them; they are not project deliverables.

  1. EI1 Knowledge on biodiversity status and trends and drivers of biodiversity loss is improved.
  2. EI2 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.
  3. EI3 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.
  4. EI4 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.
  5. EI5 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.
  6. EI6 Progress towards international commitments worldwide on biodiversity is made.

What evaluators will look for in this topic

Expected outcomes

  • Projects should contribute to all of the expected outcomes.
  • For each outcome (EO1 to EO3), name who will use or adopt your results (a specific group, not “industry” or “society”), how they get them, and the indicator that shows the change, with baseline, target and date.
  • Use the topic's own words for each outcome, so the evaluator can tick it off.

What the scope asks for

Evaluators check the proposal against these sentences of the scope. Answer each one visibly, in the call's own words.

  • “Achieving the goals of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and assessing progress towards their defined targets, requires coherent, integrated and long-term monitoring approaches, underpinned by FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) data systems.”
  • “To address these challenges, proposals should:. develop and validate fit-for-purpose multisensory biodiversity data integration systems, to enable omics-based and in-situ data harmonization and integration with remote sensing data from space or sub-orbital platforms, as well as socio-ecological and climatic data for enhancing assessment of ecosystem condition and degradation, and the predictive modelling of biodiversity trends at international,…”
  • “To this end, proposals should identify and prioritise critical biodiversity knowledge gaps and their data needs, with a focus on predictive analytics and the use of AI, and address them by designing data integration approaches that support scientific and policy needs, including biodiversity protection, restoration, and sustainable use goals and targets, as well as other related policy objectives;. develop demonstration and verification cases…”
  • “Proposals should take into account socio-economic pressures and activities impacting ecosystems, including land and sea use and emissions of pollutants (e.g. agriculture, aquaculture, urbanization, resource exploitation and management practices).”
  • “Demonstration cases should be relevant to EO applications, such as AI-assisted ecosystem and habitat mapping, ensuring interoperability with European and global frameworks such as the Global Ecosystem Typology as well as EUNIS, and aligned with reporting requirements under the Habitats Directive, Birds Directive, Marine Strategy Framework Directive and EU Nature Restoration Regulation;. deliver FAIR data, harmonisation workflows and processing…”
  • “Proposals should link observation data to emerging socio-economic, climate, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and environmental data and to relevant data infrastructures, including, if applicable, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the European Common Data Spaces and SAGE;. contribute to consensus and implementation of joint definitions of data collection, metadata and processing protocols, data quality and harmonization of standards…”
  • “Proposals should earmark resources for cooperation with existing initiatives such as in-situ data collection frameworks (e.g., GBIF, OBIS, LUCAS).The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may join the selected consortium in relation to effective coordination with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD) and its Science Service, as well as incorporating the in-situ data from European Commission steered biodiversity monitoring schemes such as LUCAS,…”
  • “Proposals should foresee sufficient mean for effective coordination with projects selected under ESA’s FuturEO programme.”

Conditions that shape the proposal

  • Part B, sections 1–3: 45 pages (standard application form). Text beyond the limit is not read; tables and figures count.
  • Lump sum: the budget is fixed per work package and paid when each work package is completed. Every work package needs activities and deliverables an evaluator can verify, and the effort must match the money.
  • Other Eligible Conditions: “The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding as a beneficiary with zero funding, or as an associated partner. The JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal - see General Annex B.”

Impact pathway and traps

  • The scope expects pilots or demonstration. Name the sites, the partners who run them and what is measured there.
  • Standardisation is mentioned. Name the committees or bodies and the partner who engages with them.
  • The Joint Research Centre may take part. Decide whether its involvement helps, and say so if you include it.
  • Open science or data practices are named. Make the data management plan concrete: which data, which repository, when.
  • Policy or regulation is in scope. Name the policy owners you will reach and what you will give them.
  • Keep outputs, outcomes and impacts apart: what you deliver, what changes when others use it, and the long-term effect.
  • For each destination impact you claim, show which of your outcomes feeds it. Destination impacts are long-term effects, not project deliverables.
  • Name the barriers outside the project (regulation, markets, user behaviour) that could block uptake, and what you will do if they do.
  • Section 2.3 (the summary canvas) is optional on this call; the old split into scientific, economic and societal impact is no longer required.
The scope, as published

Achieving the goals of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and assessing progress towards their defined targets, requires coherent, integrated and long-term monitoring approaches, underpinned by FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) data systems. Many existing in-situ data collections (i.e. genomic assessments, ground sampling, drone and airborne observations) were not designed with Satellite Remote Sensing integration in mind (i.e. for validation and calibration, integrated data products, or statistical scaling of information) and lack the structure, interface and metadata required to support advanced analytics, including AI. FAIR data on species and ecosystems will also help to ensure that biodiversity preservation is a mainstream feature of other sectors, such as agriculture, transport, energy or the bioeconomy. There is a need for systemic, harmonised or standardised biodiversity data at Earth’s surface in order to support AI applications ranging from genome to space and to build up our knowledge on the status and trends of habitats, species, ecosystems, and on the drivers of decline. To address these challenges, proposals should: develop and validate fit-for-purpose multisensory biodiversity data integration systems, to enable omics-based and in-situ data harmonization and integration with remote sensing data from space or sub-orbital platforms, as well as socio-ecological and climatic data for enhancing assessment of ecosystem condition and degradation, and the predictive modelling of biodiversity trends at international, regional and European scales; develop concrete technical capabilities able to answer to diverse use cases, across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems in Member States and Associated Countries. To this end, proposals should identify and prioritise critical biodiversity knowledge gaps and their data needs, with a focus on predictive analytics and the use of AI, and address them by designing data integration approaches that support scientific and policy needs, including biodiversity protection, restoration, and sustainable use goals and targets, as well as other related policy objectives; develop demonstration and verification cases focusing on specific ecosystems under the EU ecosystem typology and habitats, including ecotones, identified as those under pressure or as restoration priorities. Proposals should take into account socio-economic pressures and activities impacting ecosystems, including land and sea use and emissions of pollutants (e.g. agriculture, aquaculture, urbanization, resource exploitation and management practices). Demonstration cases should be relevant to EO applications, such as AI-assisted ecosystem and habitat mapping, ensuring interoperability with European and global frameworks such as the Global Ecosystem Typology as well as EUNIS, and aligned with reporting requirements under the Habitats Directive, Birds Directive, Marine Strategy Framework Directive and EU Nature Restoration Regulation; deliver FAIR data, harmonisation workflows and processing protocols supporting data integration from genome to space and verify the use of generated datasets on identified analysis needs. Proposals should link observation data to emerging socio-economic, climate, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and environmental data and to relevant data infrastructures, including, if applicable, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the European Common Data Spaces and SAGE; contribute to consensus and implementation of joint definitions of data collection, metadata and processing protocols, data quality and harmonization of standards enabling the integration of observations “from genomes to space”. Proposals should earmark resources for cooperation with existing initiatives such as in-situ data collection frameworks (e.g., GBIF, OBIS, LUCAS).The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may join the selected consortium in relation to effective coordination with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD) and its Science Service, as well as incorporating the in-situ data from European Commission steered biodiversity monitoring schemes such as LUCAS, specifically LUCAS grassland, and EMBAL (European Monitoring of Biodiversity in Agricultural Landscapes). Proposals may consider services offered by European research infrastructures. This topic is part of the Biodiversity cluster of the EC-ESA Earth System Science Initiative (ESSI). Proposals should foresee sufficient mean for effective coordination with projects selected under ESA’s FuturEO programme. The “EU ecosystem typology” is a classification of ecosystem types developed by the Commission and the European Environmental Agency, in collaboration with Member States and it is tailored to meet EU needs. Its first level is legislated and is used for the reporting under in Annex IX of Regulation (EU) 691/2011. Ecotones are areas of steep transition between ecological communities, ecosystems, and/or ecological regions along an environmental or other gradient. (S. Kark, Effects of Ecotones on Biodiversity, Reference Module in Life Sciences, Elsevier, 2017, ISBN 9780128096338, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809633-8.02290-1) https://www.egi.eu/project/sage/. The catalogue of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) research infrastructures portfolio can be browsed from ESFRI website https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/

Other topics in HORIZON-CL6-2027-01

Source and attribution

Topic text from the official topic page on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, retrieved 19 October 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU (CC BY 4.0). Changes: the expected outcomes and impacts are split into numbered statements, long passages are shortened, and the evaluator checklist is GrantWise's own commentary. Your call and the Work Programme always win; check them before you submit. GrantWise is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the European Commission.