Article

EKLIPSE

Knowledge & Learning Mechanism on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services

Developing a mechanism for supporting better decisions on our environment based on the best available knowledge.

The European Commission opened a call for extension for those Horizon 2020 projects that would like to have an extension of their duration up to six months to overtake delays and difficulties that they may have encountered due to the Covid-19 situation. Eklipse applyed for an extension of 4 months, which was accepted.

After the conclusion of the project (December 2020), Eklipse will begin operating as an autonomous entity and continue its activities and competences under the management of Alternet.

The first four years of the development of "this support mechanism" are supported by the EKLIPSE project, funded by the European commission under the Horizon2020 funding stream, and coordinated by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology*. 

   EKLIPSE is an unusual project in several ways, particularly:

    • The project, and the developing mechanism, is reactive. Most 3-5 year projects predict what will be important, or make an assumption on what policy and society actors should be interested in. We look at this from the end-users' perspective. This is why we have an open call for requests, so that policy-makers and societal actors can tell us what they need, and can discuss with us how we can best meet their needs. Our first request came from the European Commission, and was on nature-based solutions in cities. The Expert Working Group selected to work on this request released a report and peer-reviewed article in 2017. More information on this first request can be found under ongoing activities.
    • The governance of the mechanism- how it will be run, by who, with what funding etc- is really important to get right, so we can ensure the mechanism is self-sustaining and long-term. So, we have put in place several key components:
      • The Secretariat (Juliette Young, Jorge Ventocilla and Marie Vandewalle): for the day to day activities, including communication between all relevant people.
      • The Strategic Advisory Board: the "ambassadors" of our project, who can advise on our direction, our budgets etc .
      • The Knowledge Coordination Body: (KCB, not to be confused with KGB...), responsible for working with requesters on what they need, and how they need it. They also decide on whom to appoint and fund - all in a transparent and clear way.
      • The Business Plan Group: responsible for developing the Business plan for the mechanism. 
  • To check whether these components are the right ones, and whether they will work in the best possible way, we have an internal evaluation that will run over the life of the project. This evaluation assesses the ways in which we do things, and informs improvement of all our processes as we go along, so that the end product - the mechanism - will be really effective. 

Click here for their reports.

Source: Eklipse 

Image credits

Icon image: oppla - eklipse