During a 48-month timeframe, SRAT will build a Sea River-Terrestrial Systemic Change Model

Learning → Citizen Evidence → Multi Actor Deliberation → Decisions → Practice Change → Transformation

to identify interacting barriers across four domains — behavioral, governance, economic, and ecological and spatial — and guides interventions that address them simultaneously. Each pilot combines community knowledge and participation with scientific investigation to examine where change stalls, why barriers persist, and which combinations of interventions enable progress. Monitoring and reflection feed findings back into the process, allowing participants to adapt interventions and assess whether changes in decisions and practices contribute to measurable ecological benefits.

The emerging comparative framework considers catchments and coasts of the five major sea basins (Arctic, Atlantic, Baltic, Black, Mediterranean), including rivers and sea connections, estuaries, coasts and lagoons; river–lake systems; and terrestrial interfaces such as agriculture, wetlands, and forests. SRAT supports transdisciplinary research communities from natural and social sciences and humanities (SSH), as well as cultural and creative sectors, among others, collaborate to improve understanding on the indirect drivers behind biodiversity-harming practices, identify leverage points and test evidence-based interventions – including in relation to governance, incentives, narratives, norms and power asymmetries – with public and private sector actors to incentivise and strengthen collaborative, nature-positive practices that enable transformative change for biodiversity.

SRAT will investigate the institutional, cultural, and economic conditions that determine whether participation leads to sustained changes in decisions and practices. It will also support replication and scaling through a European Sea River Learning & Evidence Network and targeted Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP).

Prospective partners are invited to contribute relevant expertise, propose a clear research or pilot role, identify the actors and decisions they can engage, and help shape a coherent, competitive proposal. We are particularly interested in teams able to connect scientific investigation with real institutional or operational change.

Pre-application consortium management coordinator:

Sandra Lund, email: info@livinglabsnetwork.com SUBJECT: SRAT

Deadline: 14 January 2027

• Type: Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action Lump Sum

• Total topic budget: €12 million

• Expected EU contribution: approximately €4 million per project

• Expected awards: 3 projects

• Funding rate: normally 100% for eligible RIA costs

Proposals are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• policy and decision makers at relevant levels are better equipped to incorporate educational, cultural, societal and behavioural insights related to biodiversity – such as business dependencies, vulnerabilities and systemic risks – into future policy development, including through participatory and co-designed approaches;

• institutional, business, financial and economic actors have better awareness on the systemic effects of their interactions and interdependencies with ecosystems, including international trade, across value chains; the understanding and mapping of cross-actor and cross-sectoral relationships and their associated knowledge production and decision-making pathways are improved;

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