BiodivERsA – the challenge and the result
Comment by Peter Bridgewater the Chair of BiodivERsA's Pan European Call Evaluation Committee
BiodivERsA, as one of a number of European Research Area schemes drew together the strengths , in intellectual and financial terms of some European Research funding bodies at national level, as part of the EU’s 6th framework programme designed to promote coordination of national research funding programmes.
And now the partner agencies are in the process of making the formal funding decisions and the successful projects will soon be underway. For those who made it; well done, a good achievement, and a strong challenge. Yet to get to these finally agreed and funded 12 projects was a long process – long to ensure proper consideration and fairness, and long to ensure only the very best projects were selected.
I had the pleasure of chairing the Evaluation Committee for BiodivERsA, which met firstly in Lisbon, at the invitation of the Portuguese FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia at the end of March 2008. The Evaluation Committee at that time had the difficult job of sifting nearly 200 pre-proposals into a set that would be asked to submit a full proposal. About 2/3 of the Evaluation Committee were directly from the science community, about 1/3 from the science –policy interface – between us covering the range of disciplines covered by the pre-proposals.
After intensive work prior to the meeting by the members of the Committee, it met in full session for three days, examining in teams, and then in full plenary, the pre-proposals. It was a difficult task because of the very high quality of most of the submissions. But in the end it was clear we had 47 which stood out from the rest, and those went to the full proposal stage.
In late September 2008 the Evaluation Committee met again, in Oslo, at the invitation of RCN (Research Council of Norway-Forskningsrådet). This time the Committee had lost one or two original members, but was strengthened by an equivalent number of new members to cover the full range of subject matter encompassed by the proposals. Meeting continuously in plenary on this occasion we completed very hard task of reducing the proposals to a ranked list, recognising in some cases it was very difficult to compare exactly two projects with different subject matter and different approaches. Yet, in the end, a ranked list was achieved, with remarkable unanimity among members of the Evaluation Committee. And, as you know, following that process, the Steering Committee then had the difficult task of fitting that list to the available funding sources.
But is it worth taking nearly 12 months for this exercise? is a question I hear forming in your brain, if not on your lips. Of course the question probably does not arise if you are one of the successful consortia! But the answer is an unreserved yes, because Biodiversity research in Europe, and certainly globally, does need a more integrated focus. The needs and demands of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on member states (and the EC itself) mean much better quality information is needed on the status and trends of biodiversity. And in going through this process I am sure a good section of the scientific community, as well as the science-policy community, and the funding agencies themselves, learnt a great deal about the ways to promote an integrated and policy-relevant approach from biodiversity science.
The final set of projects cover a range of topics, including climate change effects, economic and ecosystem service aspects of biodiversity, marine issues, and, importantly, the role of microbial and fungal diversity in ecosystem processes. All of the projects will help improve the science and evidence base for biodiversity challenges in the EU – including linking with the policy process.
And that brings me to the final comment – if we did it again what would the Evaluation Committee have wished for? And the answer is; better attention to answering the question on policy relevance of the project – either at pre-proposal or proposal stage. Far too many proposals simply said “this topic is policy relevant…” And?
What the Evaluation Committee was looking for, and too rarely found, was a convincing statement of why the topic was policy relevant, in what waysthe project could help policy/ and/or management develop, and how the wider community could be engaged if not in the project, certainly in applying the results. Something to remember for next time.
Finally I would like to congratulate the successful consortia, thank all members of the Evaluation Committee who gave freely of their time and expertise to help in this process, and to thank especially the secretariat from IFB (now FRB) and the support from various funding agency staff throughout this process. But – BiodivERsA should not be a once-off - if we are really to understand and manage biodiversity in this 21st century this needs to happen on a continuing basis!!
