Deadline: 19-Sep-23
The European Commission (EC) is pleased to announce the Call for Proposals to promote the development and/or the strengthening of the scientific knowledge needed to support the science-basis for fisheries conservation and management measures.
Scope
- The priorities related to this call are the reinforcement of policy-oriented fisheries science, the better use of the collected scientific data, the improved cooperation between scientists and the fisheries sector, and the contribution in supporting the EU scientific community in developing and maintaining the relevant expertise to provide high quality scientific advice.
Themes
- Projects should focus on at least one of the themes listed below:
- Improve or update the available scientific knowledge to advise the European Commission on proposing new fisheries conservation and management measures or reviewing the existing ones within the CFP context, including its international dimension.
- Optimise the collection and use of samples and collected scientific data under the Data Collection Framework or under any other data collection or monitoring initiatives at national/regional or EU level.
- Adapt the scientific advice currently provided for the CFP to the upcoming challenges affecting fisheries management such as climate change, and related changes in ecosystems.
- Improve methodological aspects of the design, collection and/or management of the data collected that will benefit the scientific advisory process.
- Strengthen scientific knowledge to assess and monitor the impact of fisheries on the structure, function and dynamics of marine ecosystems, and their associated services.
- Increase understanding of stock structures, life histories, food webs and multi-species interactions.
- Increase understanding and operationalization of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM) to further develop capacity to provide advice using environmental, social and economic information, including through quantitative analysis.
- Strengthen scientific and operational knowledge to monitor and assess the impact of fisheries on vulnerable and sensitive species with a view to identify biologically sensitive areas, hot-spots by-catch areas and mitigation measures to monitor and control mortalities.
- Support the EU scientific community, in developing and maintaining the relevant expertise to provide high quality scientific advice to inform fisheries management.
- Support the involvement of policy stakeholders and citizens in the provision of fisheries data, the process of the production of scientific advice, and the communication of scientific results.
- Increase monitoring and understanding on the impact of other human activities and threats to fisheries stocks and linked ecosystems.
Funding Information
- The available call budget is EUR 2 600 000. This budget might be increased by maximum 20%.
- Duration: They expect to fund up to 7 projects.
Eligible Activities
Selected projects can include for example the activities listed (non-exhaustive list) below:
- Collection and processing of samples and/or data in the field falling outside the scope of national data collection programmes (e.g. environmental samples, biological samples, social and economic data,),
- harmonise and/or improve protocols of data collection, handling and management to serve the scientific advisory process,
- Trials (e.g. exploring methods for improving surveys, collection of data, monitoring methods, risk assessments,),
- Meta-analysis, data validation and/or data preparation to feed into models,
- modelling: development, improvement, operationalising, testing and/or validation of models (e.g. adding age error matrices, incorporating environmental, social and/or economic drivers, considering multispecies interactions, adjusting models to geographical areas,),
- Developing methodologies for stocks evaluations including refining of Stock assessment parameters, or including data-limited methods and those suitable providing advice on very rare sensitive species, expanding current databases or creating new databases and link with existing initiatives with the aim of improving data quality and serving scientific advice, developing new advice formats or frequencies.
- In addition, projects should develop networking activities between EU scientists and/or with EU fishing industry (e.g. multidisciplinary analysis, workshops, benchmark meetings, stakeholders’ consultations, networking of existing samples, etc.).
- Applicants should explain in the proposal the added-value of their projects in relation to similar actions implemented under national EMFAF Operational Programmes (shared management), e.g. Data Collection Frameworks (DCF) or monitoring programmes under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the EU Birds and Habitats Directive.
Expected Impact
- The funded actions are expected to improve the knowledge available to the EU (and global) fisheries scientific community, thus directly improving the science-base for the conservation and management measures designed in the context of the CFP.
- Applicants should describe in their proposals the concrete and measurable results within the duration of the project and their expected impacts, including indicators for the monitoring and measurement of the progress.
- The results should be presented in a format comparable to the relevant EMFAF results indicators (KPI)
- CR 10 – Actions contributing to a good environmental status, including nature restoration, conservation, protection of ecosystems, biodiversity, animal health and welfare (number of actions)
- CR 12 – Effectiveness of the system for “collection, management and use of data” (scale: high, medium, low)
- CR 13 – Cooperation activities between stakeholders (number of actions)
- CR 21 – Datasets and advice made available (number)
- CR 22 – Usage of data and information platforms (number of page views).
- Applicants should describe the main target fora in which their results should be considered to feed scientific advice processes for fisheries management (e.g. existing working groups of scientific bodies).
Eligibility Criteria
- In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- Be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- Be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States [including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)]
- Be research centres, institutes, universities, foundations and scientific bodies primarily active in fisheries science or in marine science applied to fisheries management. Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register — before submitting the proposal- and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin. Other entities may participate in other consortium roles, such as associated partners, subcontractors, third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc.
For more information, visit European Commission.