Capacity: Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (FSML)

Understanding biomass flows in Europe is sponsored by European Commission — Horizon Europe. Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes: enhanced understanding of the environmental, social and economic potential of the supply of different biomass types (from local to international perspectives), as well as its sustainability implications, including biodiversity and (air, water and soil) pollution, synergies and tensions; enhanced capacity of private and public stakeholders to increase resource efficiency in utilising primary and secondary biomass as well as biomass processing and use, including through digital tools which may involve artificial intelligence and remote sensing, and roadmaps towards sustainable biomass management; without undermining food security; enhanced support to businesses and administrations that optimise biomass supply, processing, and use, such that ecosystems and biodiversity are protected and restored, emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants reduced, and human needs for biomass satisfied in sufficient and fair way. Scope: There is a need to better understand the production and use of biomass, a limited resource, in its various types. Bioeconomy, and biomass as its essential feedstock, provides solutions on various dimensions (environmental, social and economic). However, there are biomass-related challenges to overcome: the EU forest carbon sink is below the target and declining in most countries and the need to restore ecosystems and halt biodiversity loss [1] . This implies that biomass supply is partly unsustainable. Simultaneously, companies see themselves challenged to satisfy the growing demand for biomass in the future. There are solutions to increase the sustainable production, including to reduce pollutants, and adjust the demand: e.g. better valorise unused or under-exploited sustainable biomass and degraded land, apply new breeding techniques and increase resource efficiency through circular design, new business models, consumption, recycling or repair. There is a need to better understand where biomass valorisation can be improved, to ensure local or regional added value increases and to drive innovative and competitive business solutions. For an optimal biomass production and effective use, matching supply and demand in the local or regional context, a better and more robust understanding of actual biomass flows is a fundamental prerequisite. Proposals should address all the following activities: Improve and develop innovative, administration-light biomass monitoring and modelling/assessment methods and digital tools at European level (regional, national, and continental scale) to optimise biomass flows, paying particular attention to areas with untapped (sustainable) biomass resources, in close cooperation with stakeholders. Provide an updated estimate of biomass supply and demand today and projected until 2050 at national and EU level, including associated countries, considering the quality of biomass, their potential use, the sustainability and risks (e.g. spread of pathogens) of supplied biomass, as well as potential non-satisfied (non-)industrial demand due to the limitation of availability of sustainable biomass. The 2050 outlook should be accompanied by scenarios on EU’s future bioresources regarding supply and demand. Test and demonstrate, in cooperation with stakeholders, the feasibility of biomass reporting in test regions of at least 10 countries across Europe with different potential of biomass supply. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding since the monitoring and assessment tools developed may contribute to the EU level assessment of biomass flows of the Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy. Proposals are encouraged to work together with additional relevant initiatives including those of the Circular Biobased Europe Joint Undertaking, the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform, the BIOEAST Initiative; build on results from Programme areas: Horizon Europe (HORIZON), Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment, Bio-based Innovation Systems in the EU Bioeconomy Keywords: Bioeconomy, Blue Economy, bio-economies, bio-economy, bioeconomies, bioeconomy, biological, biomass, circular, flows, hub, materials, region, renewable, resource, resources, sustainability, sustainable

Foresight Institute's AI for Science and Safety Nodes programme funds small projects at the intersection of AI safety and AI-accelerated science, and it is structured around physical hubs in San Francisco and Berlin that opened 1 April 2026 rather than around distributed remote work. That is the single most important thing to understand before applying: Foresight states a strong preference for applicants committed to active, in-person participation at one of the two hubs, and the non-cash benefits - office workspace, a private compute cluster, travel-paid field-building events, access to advisors - are only realisable on site. A remote applicant is competing for a 30,000 to 100,000 dollar grant while forgoing most of what the programme offers. Three focus areas are named: local compute infrastructure; coordination and accountability systems; and AI-first science in biology, neurotechnology and nanotechnology. Funding is not distributed evenly across them, with smaller grants going to Human Empowerment and to AI Insurance and Open Governance, and larger grants to the rest. Eligibility is unusually broad for AI safety funding - individuals, teams and organizations may apply, nonprofit or for-profit, with no stated geographic restriction, though for-profit applicants must justify their need for grant rather than investment funding. There is no institutional affiliation requirement, which makes this one of the few routes available to independent researchers working on AI safety. Applications go through an Airtable form and are reviewed monthly, with deadlines on the last day of every month running to a final documented deadline of 31 October 2026 at 23:59 PDT. Review takes roughly three months after the deadline. Because Foresight reviews monthly until the nodes reach capacity, applying early rather than at the final deadline is a real advantage.

AI Datasets is NSF's answer to a bottleneck that has become obvious as foundation models spread through the sciences: the limiting factor is rarely model capacity and increasingly the state of the underlying data. Vast quantities of scientific data already exist in repositories, instrument archives and lab collections, but most of it was assembled for a specific original purpose and is not structured, labeled, documented or integrated well enough for machine learning to use. This program funds the work of making that existing data AI-ready rather than collecting new data - feature extraction, metadata generation, dataset integration across sources, and construction of durable data pipelines - so that datasets can support discovery well beyond what they were originally gathered to answer. The three-tier structure is the key strategic feature. Planning awards of up to $200,000 let teams scope a dataset problem and build the partnerships needed before committing; Impact awards of up to $2,000,000 support focused enhancement of a specific community dataset; and Flagship awards of up to $5,000,000 target datasets of broad, cross-disciplinary consequence where the payoff justifies a major investment. Groups without an established data-engineering track record should strongly consider entering at the Planning tier rather than reaching for Flagship, since the Flagship competition (5 to 10 awards) will be dominated by teams with existing repository infrastructure and demonstrated community uptake. Six NSF directorates co-sponsor the program, so proposals that credibly serve more than one scientific community have a structural advantage. Eligibility is unusually broad for NSF - for-profit organizations, state and local governments, tribal nations and federal agencies may all submit alongside universities and non-profits - and there are no limits on the number of proposals per organization or on PI qualifications. The November 4, 2026 deadline recurs on the first Wednesday in November annually thereafter, making this a program worth planning against over multiple cycles.