Water4All TAP Action on Water and Biodiversity

Context

The Thematic Annual Programming (TAP) Action is a tool aimed to foster collaboration between research project partners. It is described as an “alignment” instrument as it results from the strategic coordination of participating funding agencies.

Its implementation includes three main stages:

• Phase 1. Participating funding agencies agree on a specific water research topic, based upon the knowledge gaps set out in the Water4All’s Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).
• Phase 2. Participating funding agencies propose water projects to join the TAP. Those water projects are most frequently selected after the evaluation process of national calls. The TAP therefore relies on the establishment of a network or cluster of excellence of national projects focusing on specific RDI needs from new or already started national calls.
• Phase 3. Creation of the actual network of national projects. Members of the TAP are afterwards responsible for defining an action plan, which can include diverse types of activities e.g. knowledge sharing, development of strategic papers or organisation of thematic events.

Activities leading to the TAP create a critical mass of research and technological excellence and ensure the integration and sharing of knowledge.

The Water4All TAP Action is an additional initiative complementary to the six Joint Transnational Calls foreseen during the lifetime of the Water4All Partnership. Moreover, it will employ a multi-disciplinary approach including economic, ecological, societal and technological disciplines and perspectives. 

Topic

The general theme of the first Water4All TAP Action is Water and Biodiversity, based on the Water4All Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda Theme II “Water for ecosystems and biodiversity” and encompasses: 

• environmental engineering and ecohydrology for ecosystem restoration, 
• multiple pressure–impact–response relationships,
• monitoring tools at different scales,
• harmonization of methodologies for evaluation of surface water hydromorphology,
• impacts of hydrological extremes,
• rehabilitation of water bodies.

The Water4All TAP Action theme is aligned with the 2023 Water4All Joint Transnational Call on “Aquatic Ecosystem Services”. The themes of the TAP Action on “Water and Biodiversity” and the Joint Transnational Call on “Aquatic Ecosystem Services” are complementary. The TAP Action is focusing on those aspects not centrally addressed in the 2023 Joint Transnational Call.

Participating countries*

• Czech Republic
• Finland
• Ireland
• Spain

*Note that this list may progress. Participation from other countries will remain open until six months after the TAP Action kick-off meeting in January 2024. However, it is strongly recommended to join before the kick-off meeting.

Timeline

The Water4All TAP Action on “Water and Biodiversity” was announced in the summer of 2023 and published at the national level. It was officially launched in January 2024 and will last until December 2025. Coordinators of the national funded projects invited to join the TAP Action will have to participate in annual working meetings to exchange approaches, methods, data (exchange) and results.

Terms of Reference

The Terms of Reference of the Water4All TAP Action on “Water and Biodiversity” are detailing the procedure for setting up the TAP Action, including the governance structure, the selection process, expected outputs, the added-value for researchers and funding partner organisations. The document is available for download.