With the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, Member States are now required to restore ecosystems, including agricultural ecosystems, while ensuring that restoration is practical, socially grounded and compatible with viable farming systems. The Horizon Europe project BALANCE supports this challenge by demonstrating how farming systems can be nature-positive while remaining economically viable and embedded in local realities.

The transition towards a sustainable and circular bioeconomy is central to achieving Europe’s climate, biodiversity and resilience goals. However, stakeholder engagement and coordination across the European bioeconomy landscape remain uneven, particularly across regions and sectors. STRONGBIONET addresses these challenges by strengthening and connecting bioeconomy networks across Europe and beyond. The project will establish an EU-wide, multilingual digital platform designed as a “network of networks” to support stakeholder engagement, knowledge exchange, investor readiness, education and science-policy dialogue.

Horizon Europe project, SEA4FUTURE, is dedicated to catalysing a blue transformation of the Mediterranean seafood sector. The project addresses key challenges facing the Mediterranean regions, including environmental degradation, overexploited fish stocks and socio-economic vulnerability of coastal communities. Coordinated by the University of Alicante (Spain), the project brings together 22 partners from eight countries: Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, France, Germany, Türkiye and the United Kingdom. Ecologic Institute leads social science research focusing on the integration of fishers’ knowledge and expertise in new sustainable fisheries monitoring processes and implementing a stakeholder engagement strategy to foster social acceptance and support for the sustainable seafood products and practices promoted by the project. Ecologic also coordinates the development of actionable policy recommendations and building capacity for decision-makers, supporting the adoption of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) within the EU and beyond.

As the European Commission develops the CRCF, the need for effective monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems and a detailed registry is becoming more pressing. Against this background, the CAFAMORE project addresses these challenges by developing a harmonised, parcel-level monitoring approach and a geographically explicit registry for carbon farming across the EU.

The objective of thERBN is to establish an EU-wide, multi-actor thematic network to facilitate knowledge sharing on innovative solutions for a sustainable, circular bioeconomy – specifically those applicable by small farms and foresters (practitioners) at the local scale in rural areas. This framework aims to empower practitioners by bridging the gap between existing, viable circular bioeconomy solutions and the practical challenges they face in their daily operations.

The increasing frequency of floods and droughts highlights the urgent need for climate-resilient landscapes. This is where the European research project SpongeWorks comes in, demonstrating sustainable "sponge" measures in river basins across Greece, France, and the Netherlands/Germany. By restoring rivers, wetlands, and implementing innovative agricultural practices, landscapes are becoming better equipped to retain and release water in a controlled way. With 28 partners involved, the project aims to inspire other regions by sharing success stories and tools to promote "sponge landscapes" across Europe.

The project's ambition is to contribute to the systemic transformation needed for a nature-positive economy through collaborative multi-stakeholder research and innovation to provide clarity and guidance for policy, industry and society.

CREDIBLE functions as a knowledge hub for driving carbon farming forwards. It is organised as a network of networks, involving existing research projects, initiatives, commercial sectors and public administrations.

The Assessing Climate Change Risk in EUrope (ACCREU) project aims to support a just transition to climate resilience in the EU by co-creating and delivering actionable ideas and new knowledge. This project brings together diverse stakeholders to address climate change adaptation and mitigation in the face of new social and environmental challenges.

The overall goal of GOVAQUA is to identify, assess, develop and validate innovative water governance instruments and approaches to support and accelerate a transition towards sustainable and equitable water use in Europe. Such a transition is urgently required to reconcile water uses and environmental needs and to reach the aims of the EU WFD, the European Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. GOVAQUA is a 4-year Research and Innovation Action (funded by the EU) that brings together 12 partners from across Europe.

In order to make informed decisions, consumers need information on the sustainability performance of BBPs that is evidence-based, trustworthy, transparent and clear. The Horizon Europe funded project "3-CO" responds to this need by designing a supportive framework for Labels and Certification Schemes (LCS) for industrial BBPs that are sustainable in terms of resources, processes and materials used.

Healthy wetlands are acknowledged for being among the most effective sinks for carbon and for providing other valuable ecosystem services. In contrast, human-impacted wetlands represent a major source of greenhouse gases (GHG). Important research questions on the GHG abatement potential of wetland restoration and on management and restoration actions to maintain and promote the mitigation and adaptation capacity of European wetlands are still to be answered due to major data and knowledge gaps. The RESTORE4Cs project (a 3-year Research and Innovation Action funded by the EU) aims to fill this gap by assessing the role of restoration action in wetlands climate change mitigation capacity and for the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services using an integrative socio-ecological systems approach.

Over one million barriers on Europe's rivers have resulted in extensive loss of river connectivity, and 70-90 % of Europe's floodplain areas are ecologically degraded due to human modifications. Despite having an ambitious EU policy framework in place, implementation of freshwater and transitional water ecosystem restoration is lagging behind. Reasons for this lie among others in the lack of knowledge, awareness and participation of local people and business actors. The overall goal of DANUBE4all (a 5-year Innovation Action funded by the EU) is the development of a comprehensive Restoration Action Plan for the Danube River basin developed in an unprecedented co-creation process with stakeholders, integrating citizens' interests to support the EU Mission "Restore our ocean and waters by 2030".

Climate Farm Demo is a unique pan-European network of Pilot Demo Farmers covering 28 countries and all pedo-climatic areas. Its overall aim it to accelerate the adoption of Climate Smart Farming (CSF) practices and solutions by farmers and all actors of the Climate Smart Agriculture Knowledge & Innovation Systems (AKIS) with a view of adapting agricultural production systems to climate change and of achieving a carbon-neutral agricultural sector by 2050, thereby meeting the targets of the EU Climate strategy. To reach this objective, the project adopts a Multi-Actor approach by connecting 1500 Pilot Demo Farmers and their Climate Farm Advisors (CFAs) at European and national levels to increase knowledge exchange and cross-fertilisation in their respective AKIS.

Effective marine environmental management and biodiversity conservation (including protection and restoration) are fundamental to achieving the transformation to a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive low-carbon sustainable ocean economy. MarineSABRES' simple SES approach aims to show how we can protect and maintain the natural structure and processes of marine ecosystems while simultaneously delivering the societal goods and benefits that people rely on. The approach specifically aims to improve uptake of EBM and strengthen interventions and measures for the conservation of coastal and marine areas.