Belmont Forum: call for proposals on Resilience

Since 2009, the Belmont Forum, whose members include funding organisations, scientific councils and regional consortia, has been funding calls for proposals, also known as Collaborative Research Actions (CRA).Its aim is to promote international transdisciplinary research in the context of global environmental change.

As a full member of the Belmont Forum, the SNSF is participating in the Resilience action, which aims to promote transdisciplinary research on managing the vulnerability and resilience of socio-environmental systems in exposed territories.

Inspired by the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the call aims to define and promote innovative risk management concepts that take into account global change and the evolution of human-nature interactions in addressing the increase in environmental risks. This must involve the development of risk science in line with sustainability science, the encouragement of knowledge co-production, the provision of information to governments and a focus on vulnerable areas.

Applications must relate to at least two of the following themes or objectives:

• Better assess risks of increasing complexity with global change
• Pay specific attention to exacerbated vulnerabilities in highly exposed territories
• Develop innovative solutions for disaster risk reduction

Research consortia must include at least three participants from at least three different countries, each requesting support from at least three separate funding agencies participating in the call. You can find a list of participating countries on the Belmont Forum’s official website. Given the complexity and scale of the challenges, consortia must be transdisciplinary, and therefore include researchers from:

• the social sciences / humanities / economics
• the natural sciences / physics / engineering
• societal partners (i.e. citizens, industries, civil society organisations and other stakeholders), using a participatory, co-design, co-development and co-implementation approach.

This call has a two-stage submission process: pre-proposals (deadline: 17 October 2025) and full applications (deadline: 12 Februar 2026). Please note that it is mandatory to submit pre-proposals first before full proposals can be submitted. Pre-proposals are not submitted via mySNF but via the BFgo system. Applicants will then be informed whether they are invited to submit a full proposals. Applicants based in Switzerland will have to submit the full proposal via the BFgo platform and simultaneously via mySNF.

All the conditions for submitting an application are described in the call document as well as in the national guidelines on the Belmont Forum website.