Building Bridges between Science and Policy for an Effective Cross-Sectoral Implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation
The BioAgora project is pleased to announce its inaugural Science-Policy Interface (SPI) dialogue workshop, taking place on 1 and 2 October 2025 at Thagaste, Het Augustijnenklooster in the Belgian city of Ghent.
This immersive, in-person dialogue workshop is intended for researchers and policy officers working at the EU or national level on biodiversity and cross-sectoral implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy targets with a focus on freshwater-related challenges. The programme will focus on co-learning and strengthening collaborative approaches with the aim to bridge science and policy. We will ground the dialogue workshop in the context of the Nature Restoration Regulation implementation, taking the goal to restore 25,000 km of free-flowing rivers in Europe by 2030 as the main challenge. We welcome participation from a wide range of expertise and disciplines related to freshwater and watershed management, nature restoration, agriculture, energy production, etc. In this sense, participation is not restricted to persons working in the field of freshwater restoration.
The dialogue workshop will use river restoration, free-flowing rivers and potentially the upcoming Water Resilience Strategy as a tangible case to explore shared challenges and successes the participants can learn from.
Key features of the programme:
- A thematic focus on the implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, taking free-flowing rivers, the water resilience strategy and river restoration as main challenges;
- Co-building effective recommendations for cross-sectoral national level implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation for river and water management;
- Inclusion of key-note speakers (tbc) currently being invited with a strong focus on freshwater researchers and policy-makers with extensive experience in SPI;
- A practical field visit with local stakeholders engaged in river restoration is envisioned (tbc);
- A participatory format designed to foster connection and engagement with a co-learning focus, trust building and creating mutual understanding to adequately bridge science and policy;
- Interactive sessions using experiential and collective intelligence methodologies;
- The opportunity to join a growing community of SPI practice - a network of boundary spanners across science and policy;
- No participation fee. Participants will have to pay their own travel and accommodation expenses, including dinners.
This dialogue workshop is designed not only to build individual capacity, but also to contribute to a long-term transformation in how science-policy interactions are co-created and sustained. The balanced representation of sectors, expertise (including social sciences and economics), gender and experience will be an essential component on the path to those aims.
We warmly encourage you to register and to reserve these two days in your calendar. As places are limited, however, we ask that you do so soon!