BiodivFuture focuses on supporting future-looking research and innovation that will address biodiversity and novel ecosystems, as well as their socio-ecological dynamics and consequences relating to the sustainability goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and associated future pathways and trajectories of change. The call covers investigating the causes (drivers), effects (biological responses), and outcomes (including opportunities, risks and trade-offs) of current and future trajectories of change in all relevant realms (terrestrial, freshwater, marine and coastal areas), in all regions of the world. It aims at funding novel, high-quality transnational research with potential for societal and political impact that will significantly improve our understanding of novel ecosystems with holistic, systemic, and integrated approaches.

In the face of inevitable and potentially irreversible change, knowledge generated under this call should ultimately lead to actions to achieve impacts that sustain resilient, interconnected, diverse and ecologically functioning ecosystems. This could include critical reflection on what constitutes ecosystem states that best preserve or restore natural resources by taking multiple costs and benefits (trade-offs) into account and the diversity of contexts, scales, perspectives and world views. Well-functioning ecosystems should benefit people and protect nature at scales from local to global and emphasise biodiversity, trophic complexity, economic vitality, and societal well-being.