Call for Environmental Monitoring of the Future

Last reviewed: ‎06‎ ‎December‎ ‎2024

With this call, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management aim to support research that contributes to the development of Sweden's environmental monitoring. Application deadline was September 12, 2024.

Note: Due to an unexpected search pressure the funding decision is delayed, see further below – Important dates. New date for funding decision – January 2025!

Individual researchers or research groups are invited to apply for funding for research projects of a maximum of five million SEK and a period of up to three years (2025–2027). The total budget for the call is approximately 30 MSEK.

The focus of the call is on the development and implementation of monitoring methodology. This includes but is not limited to, tools for data collection, analysis, and data process of both new and existing data.

The call invites research proposals that contribute to improving and upgrading data capture and methods of analysis, specifically in terrestrial environmental monitoring, aquatic environmental monitoring, and environmental monitoring of toxic substances. 

Aim and target groups

The aim is to provide the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, as well as other actors in environmental monitoring, with scientifically based research that contributes to furthering the development and/or increasing the efficiency of environmental monitoring, through both existing efforts and innovative application of new technology.

Environmental monitoring, in the context of this call, refers to the collection and analysis of data from nature that provides knowledge about terrestrial and aquatic environments, as well as environmental toxins in humans or the environment. A general focus is on the development of methods and analyses or improvement of existing methodologies for assessing and modelling environmental status, dynamics and trends at relevant spatial and temporal scales.

Results will contribute to the development of environmental monitoring and provide a stronger basis for following up the Swedish environmental quality objectives, and EU or international directives and regulations. Directives and regulations of particular relevance include: the Birds and Habitats Directives, the Water Framework Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the Drinking Water Directive, the Global Biodiversity Framework (Kunming-Montreal GBF), official statistics, environmental and ecosystem accounts, the EU Zero Pollution Strategy, and the LULUCF Regulation. 

Target groups include the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, the county administrative boards, other authorities with responsibility in the environmental objectives system, those performing environmental monitoring, and operators who are subject to self-monitoring that generates or may generate environmental data. 

Results from research projects must be readily applicable and operational for the above aims and target groups.

Background

Swedish environmental monitoring has a long history. Millions of measurements and observations of Swedish environmental conditions have been made over the years. Sweden has some of the world's longest time series as well as a world-leading environmental sample bank and data hosting with open and accessible data (1).

Data from environmental monitoring are used in many contexts. They have crucial importance for assessment of the Swedish environmental quality objectives. Environmental monitoring provides a basis for assessing the overall effects of implemented environmental measures and identifying emerging environmental risks (2, 3). Data and analysis results are used for Swedish official statistics and for reporting the state of the environment to the EU and other international bodies. Documentation is needed for community planning and management of ecosystem services, as well as for permit matters and supervision. 

If the proposals for the Chemicals Assessment Reform, the Soil Framework Directive, the Restoration Regulation, and the Forest Monitoring Regulation are adopted by the EU, they will also have consequences for data capture that will be needed in the future. Moreover, the Open Data Directive imposes additional requirements on the environmental monitoring data accessibility. Data from central government funded environmental monitoring programmes are important as a reference from which operators can assess the impact of their own activities on the surrounding environment. Environmental monitoring should also provide citizens with reliable information on the state of the environment. 

Environmental monitoring needs to be developed and improved, while being made more efficient without losing the value of existing long time series and data. Thus, there is a need for a new scientifically based rationale on environmental monitoring and assessment, as well as innovation and employment of new technologies such as eDNA/DNA, remote sensing, satellite-based earth observation data, geographic information systems, field sensors and devices, innovative data analyses, and processing including artificial intelligence. 

In recent years, two calls from the Environmental Research Fund have advanced some elements of environmental monitoring, one focusing on eDNA (4) and the other on syntheses on digitisation to support sustainable management (5). Where relevant, applications within the present call can build on results from these initiatives. In addition, several initiatives in progress under Horizon Europe aimed at the development and networking of environmental monitoring (6, 7 & 8) need to be taken into account. Specifically, overlap with the recently started projects within Biodiversa+ BiodivMon call should be avoided. 

Environmental monitoring

is built upon:

  • Long-term collection of data on the environment, using validated methods
  • Long-term data management, maintenance and accessibility 
  • Processing, analysis, and evaluation of data, using verified methods
  • Communication of results to a range of different actors in society

Serves multiple purposes by providing a basis for:

  • Describing the current state and changes in the environment
  • Detecting new environmental problems
  • Assessing progress in achieving environmental objectives 
  • Reporting and data sharing in accordance with Swedish legislation, EU regulations, and commitments under multilateral environmental agreements

Knowledge needs

To meet the increasing demands placed on environmental monitoring in a cost-effective manner, incorporation of new technologies and renewed monitoring schemes are required.

The call's three monitoring areas, terrestrial, aquatic and toxic substances monitoring, and/or combination of monitoring areas, require knowledge that often transcends the boundaries between different perspectives, such as local vs. national scale, theory vs. practice, and human impact vs. natural processes. More specifically, development of technology or analysis of environmental monitoring is needed in the areas of landscapes, biodiversity and ecosystem services, detection of emerging environmental risks and changes, non-destructive methods for estimating populations and stocks, impact assessment of fisheries, and other human activities affecting ecosystems.

Some other areas in need of advancement and renewal include: conceptual design of monitoring programs, opportunities to co-analyse environmental monitoring data with data collected for other purposes, efficient and user-friendly analysis methods and modelling, and methods for producing reference values, impact assessments, as well as index and indicator development. A key area is how to intercalibrate data collected using traditional methods (field methods) with new technology/data. 

Knowledge support is needed for:

  • Development and/or application of new methods and techniques for environmental data collection. There is a need for scientifically based support on how new methodologies and technologies can be developed and used to increase the effectivess of environmental monitoring or the quality of collected data.
  • Data processing: There is a need for innovative thinking and new knowledge about methods or processes that are useful in the applied work with data flows in relation to automation, flexibility, adaptability, and quality control. This applies to the entire process from data capture via databases to analysis, accessibility, and reporting.
  • Data analysis: There is a need for new methodologies for processing and analysing data, including modelling. There is also a need for analysis methodologies that effectively combine innovative techniques with more traditional methods at different scales with varying levels of detail. 

Priorities

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management are looking for projects:

- that contribute with applicable and validated methods to improve the efficiency of environmental monitoring, data processing and/or analysis. For example, approaches on the development and/or application of newer technology or how a combination of field measurements, new technology and automated data capture can be co-analysed; 

and/or 

- that add results useful for the assessment of various directives, regulations and environmental quality objectives. For example, approaches producing data that provide a basis for assessments under several directives and regulations or demonstrate synergies among areas contributing to more efficient environmental monitoring, data processing and/or analysis.

The focus should be on terrestrial and/or aquatic environmental monitoring and/or monitoring of toxic substances. We welcome combined approaches that can also include other environmental monitoring areas. We aim to allocate budget resources to at least one project within each area that is terrestrial environmental monitoring, aquatic environmental monitoring, and environmental toxins monitoring. 

The call does not specifically cover evaluation and assessment of environmental measures or interventions. Proposals related to the monitoring of seal species and cormorants are referred to the research call

Towards ecosystem-based aquatic management

Practical instructions

It is important that the relevance for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management is clearly stated in the application.  We welcome subject specific as well as interdisciplinary research projects. We encourage new research collaborations and interactions with actors outside of academia.

Eligible applicants are researchers with a PhD at universities, colleges, research institutes or government agencies who conduct research as part of their assignment. The primary applicant must be affiliated with an organisation with a Swedish organisation number. 

Applicants and co-applicants should have fulfilled their obligations in previous research projects funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency before the application deadline for the call. Otherwise, the application will be rejected for formal reasons. Researchers who are granted funding are expected to participate in annual research meetings of relevance for funders and in annual meetings for actors associated with this research call. Researchers are also expected to allocate resources for communication with the agencies and other actors and stakeholders. 

Important dates

Deadline for applications: 12 September 2024, 14:00 C.E.T.

Funding decision: January 2025

Start date of the projects: January – March 2025

How to apply

Application should be written in English, as they are reviewed by international experts. The application is made electronically via the Prisma application system. See the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s instructions for both applicants and reviewers. See also the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s policy for further utilization of data and information.

Contact information

Kari Stange, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
Phone: +4610 698 1286
E-mail: kari.stange@naturvardsverket.se

Hannah Östergård Roswall, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
Phone: +4610 698 1681
E-mail: hannah.ostergard.roswall@naturvardsverket.se

Ulrika Stensdotter Blomberg, the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management
Phone: +4610 698 6011
E-mail: ulrika.stensdotter@havochvatten.se

  1. The national and regional environmental monitoring program areas, monitoring manuals and other related activities as presented at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. In Swedish: Den nationella och regionala miljöövervakningens programområden, övervakningsmanualer och kvalitetsarbete presenteras hos Naturvårdsverket: 

    Handledning för miljöövervakning
  2. Sweden's environmental monitoring – its task and organisation for good environmental management. In Swedish: Sveriges miljöövervakning – dess uppgift och organisation för en god miljöförvaltning, SOU 2019:22
  3. Sweden's environmental objectives (sverigesmiljomal.se)
  4. Research call  DNA methods in environmental monitoring
  5. Research call Syntheses on digitization as support for sustainable management
  6. Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals aims to develop next-generation chemical risk assessment to protect human health and the environment - PARC (eu-parc.eu)
  7. Biodiversa+ aims to establish a transnational network of national biodiversity monitoring schemes (biodiversa.eu)
  8. Water4All 2022 Joint Transnational Call / Management of water resources: resilience, adaptation & mitigation to hydroclimatic extreme events & management tools
  9. BiodivMon – To improve transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change (biodiversa.eu)