Project description
Beyond carbon: prioritising biodiverse forest futures
Forests are essential for climate mitigation, yet current reforestation efforts often focus only on carbon capture, overlooking biodiversity and natural regeneration. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the RECRUIT project aims to establish the first European-wide priorities for restoring biodiverse and climate-resilient forests. It will focus on mapping vertebrate gains and losses, reconstructing seed dispersal networks to distinguish between natural and active restoration needs, and prioritising scenarios that balance biodiversity, carbon sequestration and societal benefits. By developing these multi-objective restoration plans, RECRUIT intends to support European countries in achieving meaningful environmental outcomes. The project’s goal is to provide the tools needed to combat the climate and biodiversity crises, ensuring high scientific, policy and societal impact across the continent.
Objective
Forests are central to climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation, and international policies have pledged to accelerate reforestation. Yet, many reforestation plans remain focused on carbon. Overlooking biodiversity may not only harm species and ecosystem functioning, but also compromise the ability of forests to regenerate and sequester carbon. Forest recovery is further limited by accelerating climate change and a seed dispersal crisis in Europe. The question is: Where should forests be restored, and with what tree species, to enhance natural regeneration and long-term climate and biodiversity benefits? RECRUIT will deliver the first European-wide priorities for restoring biodiverse and climate-resilient forests. This will be achieved through three steps: (1) Quantify and map potential gains and losses for vertebrate species under biodiversity-blind re/afforestation scenarios, and identify ecosystems that could be threatened by reforestation; (2) Reconstruct seed dispersal networks in current and future climates by combining species-distribution models with interaction network data, to reveal opportunities for natural regeneration, vs. where active restoration is needed. (3) Develop a multi-objective prioritisation for climate-resilient forest restoration scenarios that jointly optimises biodiversity, carbon and nature’s contributions to people (e.g. recreation, pest control). RECRUIT has the ambition to support European countries’ restoration plans and achieve meaningful climate and biodiversity outcomes. Novel methodological approaches, timeliness of the project for policy process, and a series of measures for dissemination and communication, ensure high scientific, policy and societal impacts during the project and in the years that follow. For the fellow, RECRUIT consolidates an independent profile in biogeography, network science and spatial planning, and broadens career opportunities through new collaborations and an expanded skillset and expertise.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering ecosystem-based management ecological restoration
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences physical geography
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
8092 Zuerich
Switzerland
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.