The NetBiome-CSA project aims at extending and strengthening research partnerships and cooperation for smart and sustainable management of tropical and subtropical biodiversity in the EU’s outermost regions (ORs) and overseas countries and territories (OCTs). Ecologic Institute contributes to the project by providing evidence on the economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services in ORs and OCTs, by organising training sessions for stakeholders, and by developing targeted policy recommendations for local, regional and EU policy-makers.

What can consumers, medical staff, researchers, members of water boards and politicians do to reduce the input of pharmaceutical residues at the source? This short film illustrates how all involved stakeholders can contribute jointly to solutions.

Even though Europe's seas contribute highly to our economic and social well-being by offering a diverse array of species, habitats and ecosystems, they are threatened by human activities. In order to protect Europe's seas from irreversible damage the European Environment Agency (EEA) published 'Marine messages' that gives an overview of the current state-of-affairs of European seas and our use of them. Benjamin Boteler and Dr. Manuel Lago from the Ecologic Institute contributed to this report. The brochure is available for download.

This science policy brief summarizes the results of the Water Lives policy symposium. The Water Lives science policy symposium was held on 29 and 30 January 2014 in Brussels and was organized by BIOFRESH and REFRESH projects.

Climate change is leading to increased vulnerability of coastal areas as coastal storms, sea level rise and flooding cause significant impacts across Europe. Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts – toolKIT (RISC-KIT) is a four-year European research project aimed at delivering ready-to-use methods, tools and management approaches to reduce risk from coastal storms and increase the resilience of Europe’s coastal zones. Designed around 11 case study sites, 10 European and one international, the project takes an interdisciplinary approach combining physical, socio-economic, socio-cultural and social-ecological data to design site specific Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategies and draw implications for national and European policy.

Ecologic Institute and its partners are pleased to announce the 2014 Arctic Summer College and are seeking applications from emerging leaders working to improve Arctic governance from around the world.

This short animated video introduces the BASE project and its key issues to a wider audience. BASE (Bottom-Up Climate Adaptation Strategies Towards a Sustainable Europe) supports action for sustainable climate change adaptation in Europe by making experiences and scientific information about adaptation meaningful, transferable and easily accessible to decision-makers at all levels.

Water touches virtually all societal and environmental domains. The knowledge domain is largely multidisciplinary. New water information and knowledge can thus lead to more efficient use of environmental services and better handling of environmental problems, including those posed by climate and environmental change. The project SWITCH-ON explores and exploits the currently untapped potential of open environmental data to address water issues. Water information is of interest to many kinds of end-users, both within government and business as well as within civil society. SWITCH-ON will show the benefits achieved through the whole process chain. The project aims at re-purposing (re-using under different context) open data products into more water-dedicated and refined products. Those are considered to have high value and a broad impact on society.

Does international law allow implementing climate policies of different speeds? Can countries form pioneer alliances for ambitious climate protection or are the UN Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol a straight jacket?
 This project and a new paper answers these questions.

Dimitrova, Asya; Anna Dimitrova; Markus Hametner and Tanja Srebotnjak 2014: Blueprint for a Revised Europe 2020 strategy: preliminary study.

What shape will the future governance framework of European climate and energy policy take? The proposal submitted by the European Commission at the beginning of this year raises more questions than it answers in this regard. Dr. Camilla Bausch and Christine Lucha of the Ecologic Institute invited experts to a workshop to discuss the meaning of the commission's suggestions with a particular view toward electricity infrastructure. All presentation slides are available for download.

What role does biodiversity play for human welfare and happiness? How do understandings of the connection between these issues differ between the global north and global south? In this project, commissioned by the GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit), these questions were investigated against the background of the controversial discussion about the "commodification of nature", in order to assess differences and commonalities between various models of development. The project examined how different paradigms are applied in the practice of development cooperation.