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Biodiversity & Ecosystem Service Sustainability (BESS)

Announcement of Opportunity: Consortium proposals

Closing date for Expressions of Interest: 19 July 2011

Closing date for Full Proposals: 14 September 2011, 16:00

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is inviting research proposals to its Biodiversity & Ecosystem Service Sustainability (BESS) research programme. The BESS programme is a six year £13m research programme, which will address the NERC strategic challenges regarding biodiversity research, and the UK governments' strategic priorities with respect to biodiversity, ecosystems and their services.

This call for proposals is for the large scale consortia projects, which will establish the research platforms and address the core aims of the programme. Up to £9m will be available for this call, with the expectation that three or four proposals will be funded.

The BESS programme will define the scientific basis of the linkages between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the delivery of ecosystem services; allow prediction of how these linkages will respond to future change scenarios; develop new tools and indicators that are fit-for-purpose for tracking biodiversity stocks and the flows of services from those stocks, so that they can be managed within sustainable bounds.

Applicants should refer to the full Announcement of Opportunity and the Science and Implementation plans for full details of the programme and this call.

Announcement of Opportunity (98KB)

BESS AO1 Annex1 Guidance for Scottish MRP's (29KB)

All applicants intending to submit a proposal to this call are required to submit an 'Expression of Interest' (EoI). Only one EoI is required to be submitted for each project. Submission of an EoI is compulsory.

The EoI must be submitted using the following web based form.

For your information only, the document below shows what information is requested in the EOI. All EOIs must however be submitted using the above web-based form. Edited emailed versions of this PDF will not be accepted.

BESS Expression of Interest (39KB)

Closing date for Expression of Interest: 19 July 2011

All applicants having submitted an expression of interest for their project can submit a full proposal. Full proposals must be submitted using the Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system.

Closing date for Full Proposals: 14 September 2011, 16:00

To support potential applicants the Directorate will be running briefing sessions across the country during June and July 2011.

BESS consortium panel membership (23KB)

For further information about this Announcement of Opportunity please contact:

General application enquiries:

Amy Vitale
Tel: 01793 442594

Dominique Butt
Tel: 01793 411751

Scientific Enquiries:

Professor Dave Raffaelli
Tel: 01904 324060

Dr Piran White
Tel: 01904 324062