The European Science Foundation (ESF) – an association of the major European Funding Agencies for basic research- is committed to promoting high quality science and research at a European level. Established in 1974, the Foundation currently has 76 Member Organisations (research councils, academies and other national scientific institutions) from 29 countries. The ESF is a non-governmental organisation, although its Member Organisations are usually publicly funded agencies. It maintains close links with other international bodies with interests in scientific research, including the European Commission. The ESF brings European scientists together to work on topics of common concern, to facilitate cooperation in the use of large research facilities, and to discover and define new endeavours that will benefit from a cooperative approach. To this end ESF also funds activities (e.g. Exploratory Workshops), raises funding for new activities (e.g. Programmes, EUROCORES) and manages research networks.

As the main European platform of the European funding agencies ESF plays an important role in bringing together Funding Agencies and their national activities what also implies identifying barriers for cooperation and overcoming them. The ESF Standing Committee for Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences is an interdisciplinary Committee, composed of leading scientists nominated by the ESF Member Organisations, is responsible for identifying scientific priorities, formulating strategies and developing research agendas. For further information on ESF, its membership, structure and activities see http://www.esf.org.

International Strategy and Activities

ESF provides several mechanisms in order to network and fund networks of scientists in Europe. Some time ago, ESF Member Organisations gave a mandate to ESF for developing EUROCORES (European Science Foundation Cooperative Research Programmes) to complement existing EC and national programmes with an effective and efficient mechanism for multinational collaboration within Europe in basic research to overcome some of the disadvantages of scale and scope in a distributed science policy system. Therefore ESF initiates EUROCORES or supports the development of EUROCORES ideas, takes care of the peer review and prioritization of collaborative projects, and gets the funding commitments from participating organizations. Successful proposals are then funded nationally. In the implementation phase ESF is responsible for achieving the integrated programme goals and the networking activities.

Basically, the aim of EUROCORES is to have a system complementary to the Framework Programme by bringing together national funding agencies, national research organisations and their analogues.

The EUROCORES will complement it with an effective and efficient mechanism for multinational collaboration within Europe in basic research to overcome some of the disadvantages of scale in a distributed science policy system. Such a mechanism should maximise the investments made at national level.

Biodiversity and related Research
ESF has been coordinating and/or funded via the mechanisms like Exploratory Workshops and Scientific Networks several European research activities that have relevance to the field of biodiversity [e.g. the programme Linking Community and Ecosystem Ecology (LINKECOL)]. In July 2004 a call for the EUROCORES “EuroDIVERSITY” was published. 24 Funding Agencies from 20 European Countries are participating. With this initiative ESF will extend their scientific endeavours in the field of biodiversity.

• The ESF manages several research/innovation programmes in biodiversity and related science (life and Earth science) as:
• EuroCLIMATE, EuroMARGINS, EuroDYNA, EuroSCOPE, EuroMinScl, EuroDIVERSITY, Euro DEPP as EUROCORES programmes
• The role of soils in the terrestrial carbon balance
• Optimality in bird migration