BID-REX - From Biodiversity Data to Decisions: enhancing natural value through improved regional development policies

The Interreg Europe programme, financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), was designed to support policylearning between relevant policy organisations with the aim of improving the performance of regional development policies and programmes. It allows regional and local public authorities and other players of regional relevance across Europe to exchange practices and ideas on the way public policies work, and thereby find solutions to improve their strategies for their own citizens. (Source: Interreg Europe Programme Manual, 19 January 2016)

7 EUROPEAN REGIONS FROM 6 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

9 PARTNERS

5 public authorities

4 research institutions

7 POLICY INSTRUMENTS TO ADDRESS

4 Regional ERDF Operational Programmes 2014—2020

3 Other regional policy instruments

REGION	Policy instrument to address	Partners
1 CATALONIA	Catalan ERDF Operational Programme 2014 - 2020 AXIS 6: Protecting the Environment and Promoting Resource Efficiency. Strategic Objectives 6.3.2 & 6.4.2.
2 BASQUE COUNTRY	ERDF Operative Program for the Basque Country PO6 «Conserve and protect the environment and promote resources efficiency»
3 NORFOLK COUNTY (United Kingdom)	ERDF 2014 - 2020 for Norfolk County, England. PRIORITY AXIS 6: Preserving and Protecting the Environment and Promoting Resource Efficiency 2.A4 INVESTMENT PRIORITY 6dProtecting and restoring biodiversity and soil and promoting ecosystem services, including Natura 2000 and green infrastructure.
4 MARCHE REGION (Italy)	Marche Region Ecological Network
5 LJUBLJANA MARSH (Slovenia)	Regulation on Ljubljana Marsh Nature Park
6 North Great Plain Region (Hungary)	Hungarian Environment and Energy Efficiency Operational Programme 2014 - 2020
7 WALLONIA (Belgium)	The Regional Policy Statement for Wallonia 2014 - 2019

The BID-REX project will develop an interactive interregional learning process aimed at facilitating the exchange of approaches, tools and methods that have proven useful for bridging the existing gap between environmental information availability and decisions. More specifically, the work plan is designed to allow a logically planned interregional and local learning process organized around conferences, workshops and more in depth visits to explore and exchange best practices. The planning of these activities will allow for a progressive integration of the knowledge gained.

Thematic workshops, as main exchange activities, are the principal axis of the project work plan. The knowledge exchanges on good practices and discussion around regional challenges and potential solutions will be based on the experiences and background of each partner and local stakeholder group. The topics of the exchange activities follow a clear linear and interrelated flow starting from the needs of the regions, going through the tools and methodologies and ending with the impacts on policies.

An Action Plan for each region will be prepared providing details on how the lessons learnt from the workshops could be implemented in order to improve the policy instrument that is addressed within each region. Regular meetings with the regional Local Stakeholder Groups will be organized to identify the most useful outputs for each region to be included and adapted into their respective Action Plan. Furthermore, technical documents resulting from the corresponding thematic workshop will be also published to expand the impact of the results beyond the partnership.

• Semester 1 (04/2016-09/2016) - Launching the project Catalonia (Spain)
• Semester 2 (10/2016-03/2017) - INFORMATION NEEDS FOR DECISION MAKERS Wallonia (Belgium)
• Semester 3 (04/2017-09/2017) - MATCHING INFORMATION TO NEEDS Basque Country (Spain)
• Semester 4 (10/2017-03/2018) - IMPROVING DATA FLOWS North Great Plain Region (Hungary)
• Semester 5 (04/2018-09/2018) - CAPACITY BUILDING FOR DECISION MAKERS AND DATA PROVIDERS Site visit to different UK institutions Norfolk County (United Kingdom)
• Semester 6 (10/2018-03/2019) - HOW LEARNING PROCESS HAS IMPACTED OUR ACTION PLANS

Regional workshop - Innobasque (06/02/2017)

• Conclusions report (PDF, 2 MB)

Interregional workshop - Walonia (22-23/02/2017)

• Key Lessons Brief
• Technical Document
• Contributions from Basque Country:
  • Nature Information System of the Basque Country. Marta Iturribarria. Basque Government.
  • Ecosystem Services Assessment in the Basque Country. Miren Onaindia. UPV-EHU
  • Interview with Miren Onaindia from University Basque Country
  • From Wallonia to Basque Country. Marta Iturribarria. Basque Government

Regional workshop - Basque Government (23/05/2017)

• Conclusions report (PDF, 1 MB)

Interregional workshop - Euskadi (14-15/06/2017)

• Key lessons brief
• Technical document (draft) (PDF, 1 MB)
• Conclusions
• Video

Regional workshop - Txingudi (15/11/2017)

• Conclusions report (PDF, 1 MB)

Interregional workshop - Hungary (30-31/01/2018)

• Contribution from Basque Country:

  • Conclusions of the 3rd semester interregional workshop:
    • Presentation
    • Video

  • Topic 1: Biodiversity information flow in protected area development in partner regions: Basque Country (PDF, 3 MB) (PDF) . Marta Iturribarria. Basque Government

Interregional workshop - Norfolk (18-22/06/2018)

• Contributions from Basque Country

  • Deliver data to decision makers, problems and needs in the Basque Country (PDF, 840 KB) (PDF) . Marta Iturribarria. Basque Government

Regional workshop - Txingudi (20-21/11/2018)

• Conclusions report (PDF, 3 MB)

Interregional workshop - Slovenia (21-22/01/2019)

• Action Plan for the Basque Country (presentation) (PDF, 2 MB)

• Action Plan for the Basque Country

Nature Information System

Objective

• Improving the use of knowledge generated, especially for decision-making, in projects financed by ERDF funds and other public funds, through the Nature Information System of the Basque Country.

Actions

See 1-INFORMATION-SYSTEM.pdf (PDF, 2 MB)

• Construction of the new system.
  • Phase 1: march 2020-september 2021
  • Phase 2: october 2021-october 2022
• Develop the formats and criteria that normalize the incorporation of information to the system, in a way that guarantees their shared use and reuse. See How to contribute information to the Basque Nature Information System

Network of Knowledge

Objective

• Promoting the involvement of local stakeholders and improving governance in establishing criteria for public financing

Actions

See 2-KNOWLEDGE-NETWORK.pdf (PDF, 906 KB)

• Annual biodiversity social forum. See 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016
• Creation of the network in the new Law for the conservation of the Natural Heritage of the Basque Country (in parliamentary debate, it will be approved in the second half of 2021)
• Development of the electronic administrative procedure to register / unsubscribe from the network (operational in the second half of 2021)

Create and integrate expert knowledge

Objective

• Promoting synergies between the different priorities of ERDF funds (especially TO1 Strengthening research, technological development and innovation and TO2 Enhancing access to, and use and quality of, information and communication technologies), in order to strengthen priority 6

Actions

See 3-INTEGRATE-KNOWLEDGE.pdf (PDF, 494 KB)

• Continuous development. We hold coordination meetings with Innobasque and transversal projects of the Basque Government: Public innovation, Open Government, Urban Agenda

Criteria for public financing

Objective

• Improving the quality of projects financed with ERDF funds and other public funds

Actions

See 4-PUBLIC-FINANCING.pdf (PDF, 992 KB)

• Publish a practical Guide. See GUIDE FOR THE DESIGN OF KNOWLEDGE GENERATION PROJECTS ON BIODIVERSITY
• Promote the use of the Guide as a basis to prioritize and evaluate projects financed with public money. Since 2021 we have included the use of the Guide as mandatory in all calls for grants, agreements and contracts that generate knowledge on biodiversity 

Citizen Science

Objective

• Improving the orientation of projects, especially those based on citizen science, financed by ERDF funds and other public funds to the conservation objectives established in the European strategic and normative documents

Actions

See 5-CITIZEN-SCIENCE.pdf (PDF, 640 KB)

• Publish a practical Guide. See Guide for the design of species monitoring programmes
• Promote the use of the Guide as a basis to prioritize and evaluate projects financed with public money. Since 2021 we have included the use of the Guide as mandatory in all calls for grants, agreements and contracts that involve the design of species monitoring programmes.

• Better data, better decisions: increasing the impact of biodiversity information
• GUIDE FOR THE DESIGN OF KNOWLEDGE GENERATION PROJECTS ON BIODIVERSITY
• Action Plan of the Basque Country. BID-REX - From Biodiversity Data to Decisions: enhancing natural value through improved regional development policies