History

The origins of the Belmont Forum can be traced back to 1990, when an informal forum of agencies supporting environmental global change research founded the International Group of Funding Agencies for Global Change Research (IGFA).

 

In 2009, the IGFA was officially established as the Belmont Forum, integrated by funding organizations, international science councils, and regional consortia. Since its inception, the Belmont Forum members agreed on an annual contribution (financial or in-kind), which has remained consistent over time.

 

According to Timothy Kileen, President of the University of Illinois System, one of the Belmont Forum founders, the goal was to build a historic enterprise linking the global south and north with the aim of addressing critical issues and human capital development.

 

The Forum was started by 15 of the top countries doing global change research collaboration, emphasizing the natural and social sciences, the solution capacity, and the co-design, as a funding vehicle insistent upon the highest levels of peer review for the projects and proposals characterized by a solution perspective.

 

The leaders then agreed on the Belmont Challenge, a document created to guide scoping workshops, the Collaborative Research Actions (CRAs), the international 
advanced peer review.

 

The Belmont Forum now operates in a neutral environment to ensure equity in participation and decision-making. It welcomes new members and partner organizations from the global scientific community committed to helping fulfill the Belmont Challenge.

Global Action

To date, the Belmont Forum has launched 23 Collaborative Research Actions (CRAs), also known as calls for proposals. 

 

Through them, members and partners have supported 177 multilateral, transdisciplinary projects addressing key environmental change issues from freshwater security and coastal vulnerability to food security, land use change, and climate predictability, among others.


 

Belmont Forum members and partners have mobilized over 200 million euros to these projects.

 

A key Belmont Forum achievement is its ability to foster international collaborations in which participants from the global south and north work in different configurations to advance and share knowledge about global environmental change.

Key Milestones

These are some significant dates and achievements in the history 
of the Belmont Forum:

2009

The Belmont Forum was established as a partnership of funding organizations, international science councils, and regional consortia committed to the advancement of transdisciplinary science.

2009 - 2015

The Belmont Forum launched its first five Collaborative Research 
Actions (CRAs) or calls for proposals focused on critical areas such as Coastal Vulnerability and Freshwater Security.

2014

The Belmont Forum launched www.bfgo.org, a portal for the submission of CRA proposals, ad hoc reviews, panel summaries, and annual reports from supported projects.

2015

A permanent Secretariat was established under the auspices of the French National Research Agency (ANR). The Data Policy and Principles were adopted as part of a broader Community Strategy and Implementation Plan.

2018

The Secretariat moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, under the auspices of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI).

2021

The Belmont Forum in partnership with Future Earth agreed to co-convene the Sustainability Research and Innovation (SRI) Congress, with the aim to bring together the global community to foster dialogue and capacity building in transdisciplinary research.

2024

The Belmont Forum launched its first AI-enabled multilingual call for proposals, the Africa Regional Call (ARC), which allows proposals in multiple languages and opens opportunities to more people around the globe.

2024

The Secretariat relocated to Panama City, Panama, marking a new chapter in its commitment to supporting global research.