A PROactive approach for COmmunities to enAble Societal Transformation

Project team

• Ann-Marie Nienaber, Professor in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations
• Duru Imrie-Kuzu, Associate Professor (Research), Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations
• Katharine Jones, Professor of Migration and Social Justice, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations

Collaborators

• European Sustainable Use Group
• Universität Leipzig
• Frederick University
• Panepistimio Kritis
• Fundacion CARTIF
• Tero Monoprosopi Ike
• Costa Nostrum Certification
• Etairia Periorismenis Efthynis
• Mammides Consultants Ltd
• Fundación Ibercivis
• Università del Salento
• Universitetet i Bergen
• Ellinogermaniki Agogi Scholi Panagea Savva Ae
• Atlantic Technological University
• Tallinna Tehnikaülikool
• Univerza na Primorskem Università del Litorale
• Total PR Business SRL
• Privredna komora Crne Gore
• Friends of the Earth Malta
• Anatrack Ltd

Duration

1 November 2023 – 31 October 2026

Project overview

The PRO-Coast project is a European HORIZON project on the topic “Understanding the role of behaviour, gender specifics, lifestyle, religious and cultural values, and addressing the role of enabling players (civil society, policy makers, financing and business leaders, retailers) in decision making”. The project aims to stimulate and empower local communities and civil society in general, to support restoration and maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe, and thus to involve them more actively in environmental governance.

Project objectives

• Gather and synthesise knowledge for informed citizen decisions.
• Improve co-participation in community decision-making.
• Integrate local knowledge into policy-making.
• Promote adaptive management and resilience of coastal ecosystems through societal transformation.
• Halt biodiversity loss through system-level transformative changes.

Impact statement

• Generate and validate in diverse case studies an integrated ecosystem mapping, assessment and valuation methodology that supports evidence-based decision-making and policy development in coastal areas.
• Lead the monitoring and assessment of the performance of implementation actions in the Case Studies, by evaluating ecological, social, cultural and economic factors.
• Contribute to the development of a Social Ecological Systems Framework (SESF).
• Contribute to the replicability of the project’s actions.

Outputs

The expected outputs include:

• Development of standardised assessment protocols to evaluate ecological health, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.
• Assessment of ecological indicators (such as species diversity, habitat integrity, and water quality, alongside social, cultural, and economic indicators), and analysis of the data collected to identify trends, successes, challenges, and areas for improvement.
• Documentation of best practices, lessons learned, and successful strategies from the case studies.
• Development of replicability guidelines or toolkits for other coastal regions or projects aiming to implement similar interventions.