Project cooperation under HORIZON-NATURE-2027-02-02

CIRCE can contribute with a Living Lab to the HORIZON-NATURE-2027-02-02 call, both in Area A (disaster risk reduction against extreme weather events, water resilience and nature-based solutions) and Area B (agroecological approaches, agroforestry, grazing systems and organic farming). CIRCE is also open to co-coordinating with an entity bringing additional Living Labs if that helps complete the consortium.

CIRCE is a non-profit research and technology centre based in Spain, working at the interface between natural resources, climate resilience and the sustainable use of land and water. Our experience in European collaborative projects covers the full cycle of this kind of work: engaging local actors, setting up and running real-scale demonstration activities, monitoring environmental and socio-economic performance, and translating results into practical guidance for land managers and public authorities.

In addition to our Spanish sites, CIRCE is in a position to bring a second Living Lab in Greece, which would allow the consortium to cover a wider range of Mediterranean conditions and to test the transferability of restoration measures across different climatic, agricultural and institutional settings within the same project.

On the technical side, CIRCE can contribute in particular to:

• the design and implementation of nature-based solutions and of restoration techniques for forest, agricultural and semi-natural soils, adapted to the conditions of each site;

• the identification of key indicators for measuring and monitoring impact, together with the data collection schemes behind them and a dashboard for visualising results in a way that is usable by practitioners, site managers and policy actors;

• the characterisation of challenges and risks in each pilot case, and the identification of potential synergies between sites and between measures that allow the overall impact of the Living Labs to be maximised;

• the monitoring of compliance with the Do No Significant Harm framework throughout the restoration activities;

• the development of a roadmap towards the accreditation or certification of the biodiversity benefits achieved, as a route to making those benefits recognisable, comparable and ultimately bankable;

• climate change analysis underpinning the Area A work, and the assessment of agricultural practices underpinning the Area B work.

CIRCE is also available to take on co-coordination together with an entity bringing additional Living Labs, so that the consortium can cover the required number of Living Labs and a sufficient diversity of European ecosystems. We would be glad to hear from potential coordinators or organisations able to bring Living Labs in other biogeographical regions, including Widening countries, from research groups in restoration ecology, hydrology, agroecology, soil science and risk assessment, from practitioners' networks, and from public authorities interested in replicating the solutions tested.