Deadline: 7 November, 2025
The Biodiversa+ Partnership has launched its 5th Joint Transnational Call for transnational research and/or innovation projects to support excellent biodiversity research with an impact on policy and society.
This call aims to support transnational Research and Innovation (R&I) projects focused on setting restoration targets and measuring success, scaling and transferability of nature restoration efforts, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of restoration initiatives.
The call is designed to fund collaborative research initiatives that contribute to nature restoration across Europe. FCT has committed a financial contribution of €500,000 to this call. The maximum funding that can be requested for a consortium with Portuguese coordination is €200,000, while consortia with Portuguese participation may request up to €125,000.
If multiple Portuguese institutions participate in the same consortium, they must share the allocated funding, and payments made to companies cannot exceed 50% of their participation costs.
The eligibility of applications will be checked at both the pre-proposal and full proposal stages. National and regional funding agencies, including FCT, will verify compliance with their respective regulations, while the Call Secretariat will ensure adherence to transnational eligibility criteria. Proposals must fulfil both sets of criteria to be considered eligible.
Changes to the project budget may be approved by the relevant Funding Organisation without notifying the Call Secretariat. Changes in the consortium composition are allowed up to a maximum of three partner changes, with prior approval from the concerned Funding Organisations. However, changing the Project Partner Coordinator is only permitted in cases of force majeure and requires approval from the Call Secretariat at least one week before the full proposal deadline.
If a partner is removed, the consortium must still meet the minimum partner requirement. New partners must comply with their Funding Organisation’s eligibility rules, and their eligibility must be confirmed before submission. All changes must be declared in the Electronic Proposal Submission System (EPSS).
Certain exceptions, such as changes requested by a Funding Organisation or changes within the same country or institution (excluding the coordinator), are not counted among the three allowed changes but follow the same procedure.
Any modification must not alter the proposal’s substance, and all changes must be indicated in the full proposal. Compliance with all Funding Organisation eligibility criteria is mandatory, as any ineligible partner will render the entire proposal ineligible unless the issue can be corrected without altering the proposal’s substance.
The evaluation process includes two stages: pre-proposal evaluation and full proposal evaluation, with decisions made jointly by participating funding agencies. The call involves two submission phases: pre-proposals and full proposals. Only pre-proposals submitted in the first phase may be invited to the second phase. Each Portuguese Principal Investigator (PI) can apply only through the national Participating Funding Agency (PFA) and must adhere to national and transnational eligibility rules.
In addition, each Portuguese PI must send a completed and signed Statement of Commitment (SoC) to FCT within ten working days after the submission deadline. Failure to submit or incomplete submission of the SoC will result in ineligibility.
Applications must be submitted through the online platform by 11:00 GMT on 7 November 2025.
For more information, visit Biodiversa+ Partnership.