Belmont Forum, Future Earth and JPI Oceans are pleased to announce the 2018-2019 international call for research proposals on:
Transdisciplinary Research for Ocean Sustainability
This Collaborative Research Action (CRA) call aims to contribute to the overall challenge of ocean sustainability, using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #14 (Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development) as the overall framework.
This call encourages global partnerships of academics and non-academics to address one or more of the following topics:
- Pathways toward a sustainable and equitable use of oceans
- Accounting for and minimizing impacts of global change
Details of the call and the application process are presented on the Belmont Forum website, where you can also find links to training modules for proposers on the Belmont Forum YouTube channel.
All call documents, including guidelines for applicants, eligibility requirements, and the submission portal can be found at the Belmont Forum Grant Operations website.
16 funding organisations from 14 countries have committed more than €15 million of cash and in-kind resources for this call: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Japan, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, and USA. Through the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), researchers from Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Comoros and Madagascar are also eligible for this call.
This call aims to support medium-size research projects with a direction of three to four years, with a recommended budget of up to €1.5 million. Note that some contributions are in-kind. See organizational annexes for specific constraints and requirements of your funding organization(s). Projects are expected to start in 2020.
Development of research consortia, supported financially by at least three participating partner organizations established in three different countries, is a key criterion. We encourage global geographic diversity to increase the scalability and applicability of the project outcomes. Consortium partners that are not eligible for funding from any of the participating funding agencies can participate in the research project at their own expense. Research consortia must address one or both topics described above.
Given the complexity and scope of the challenges, research consortia must be truly transdisciplinary, thus including researchers from: a) social sciences/humanities/economy and b) natural sciences/technology, as well as c) societal partners (i.e. citizens, industry, civil society organizations), using a co-design, co-development and co-implementation approach.
Proposals should also clearly demonstrate the added value linked to the international nature of the projects and to the level of collaboration between teams from different countries.
A two-step process will apply, with a mandatory pre-registration of projects at the first step, and submission of invited full proposals at the second step. Pre-registrations and full proposals must be written in English and submitted electronically via the Belmont Forum Grant Operations website: http://bfgo.org.
Proposals will be evaluated according to criteria of (i) scientific excellence, (ii) policy relevance and societal impact (which includes stakeholder engagement), and (iii) quality and efficiency of the project implementation.
Each research Partner in a project must comply with the eligibility criteria and rules of its funding organisation.
Before starting to prepare proposals, applicants are advised to contact their National Contact Points as listed in the annex documents for the call.
Opening of call for pre-registration (mandatory): Monday 29 October, 2018
Deadline for pre-registration (mandatory): Thursday 31 January 2019
Opening of call for invited full proposals: April 2019
Closing of call for invited full proposals: August 2019
