The BANOS CSA addresses the call topic ‘Towards a Baltic and North Sea research and innovation programme’. The overarching objective of the project is to create the necessary conditions for durable coordination of research and innovation efforts in the Baltic Sea and North Sea region by preparing a framework for launching a joint Baltic Sea and North Sea research and innovation programme. The outcome of BANOS CSA will ensure that the future joint programme achieves high level of scientific, administrative and financial integration, and generates strong EU added value and impact. The BANOS CSA consortium is coordinated by BONUS EEIG – the dedicated implementing structure of BONUS - the ongoing TFEU Art. 185 initiative – and it represents the leading research and innovation funders of the EU member states and associated states surrounding the Baltic Sea and the North Sea: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and United Kingdom (four of these are represented as 3rd parties linked to the coordinator). These states have already expressed their political and financial commitment to create a joint, transnational research and innovation programme supporting sustainable blue growth within and around two interconnected Northern European sea basins. Three work packages of BANOS CSA build the three main pillars of the future programme: its strategic research and innovation agenda (WP1), mechanisms and instruments of its implementation (WP2) and solid communications, dissemination and engagement strategies and platforms (WP3). An array of mutually interlinked tasks that will enable new research and innovation programme to deliver powerful positive impact are included in the fourth work package (WP4). Finally, the governance and management package (WP5) is designed to flawlessly run the proposed action overcoming challenges posed by complexity of its work plan and diversity within the consortium.

The EU Biodiversity Strategy (BDS) requires expanding the spatial coverage of marine protected areas to 30%, with 10% strict protection. Achieving the current 14-17% coverage has taken the Baltic Sea region 30 years, and strict protection remains almost non-existent. To meet the BDS target the countries will have to double the coverage in just 8 years. To fully capitalize on the added value of increased coverage, designation, management and measures, including restoration, need to be done in a strategic, ecologically relevant way focusing on areas and measures which enhance the existing network and optimise the possibility to secure positive biodiversity outcomes. There are however substantial challenges facing the region when it comes to leveraging the full potential of upcoming protection and restoration efforts and ultimately, positive biodiversity outcomes, especially in such a tight timeframe. To ensure that the upcoming efforts are both effective and efficient, this transboundary, network level, biogeographical region scale project will: - develop infrastructure for, and ensure long term access to, an unparalleled data driven, ecoregion scale, evidence base to support strategic planning, measures and management; - develop a blue print for, and establish, a data driven, regionally agreed protection framework to improve governance and transboundary cooperation, including politically agreed shared conservation and restoration objectives, targets etc to reach the desired state; - identify the current baseline of protection efforts across the entire sea basin. - cross-reference the desired state with the current baseline to identify gaps in protection and restoration efforts; - provide concrete and replicable support to ensure capacity for the Baltic Sea MS to strategically fill the gaps, harmonise, and achieve the full potential of the protection and restoration efforts.

Being one of the main actions of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the European Biodiversity Partnership (Biodiversa+) will coordinate research programmes between EU and its Member States and Associated Countries, mobilising environmental authorities as key partners for implementing biodiversity research and innovation, along with ministries of research, funding organisations, and environmental protection agencies (75 organisations from 37 countries). Biodiversa+ has five overarching objectives: (1) improve monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe (status and trends); (2) generate actionable knowledge to tackle the direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss; (3) expand and improve the evidence base, and accelerate the development and wide deployment of NbS to meet societal challenges across Europe; (4) make the business case for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity; and (5) ensure efficient science-based support for biodiversity policy making in Europe. Biodiversa+ will meet these objectives by (i) setting up a pan-European network of harmonized monitoring schemes, building on existing national/regional monitoring schemes, creating capacity for setting up new schemes, and feeding into the EC Knowledge Center for Biodiversity; (ii) coordinating research programmes between the EU and its Member States and associated countries, thereby ensuring the long-term pan-European research agenda is co-created and implemented; (iii) contributing science-based methodologies to account for and possibly value ecosystem services and the natural capital, and to assess the dependency and impact of businesses on biodiversity and (iv) better linking of R&I programmes to the policy arena, providing greater input to policy making and improving the assessment of policy efficiency. Doing so, Biodiversa+ will help ensure that, by 2030, nature in Europe is back on a path of recovery, and by 2050 people are living in harmony with Nature.