The Belmont Forum and the ANR
An international partnership dedicated to research on environmental change
The Belmont Forum aims to accelerate environmental research and mobilise international resources to remove barriers to sustainability. Its actions are guided by the Belmont Challenge, a strategic document that promotes “international transdisciplinary research providing knowledge for understanding, mitigating and adapting to global environmental change.”
Belmont Forum members and partner organizations are collaborating to meet this challenge by launching international calls for proposals for research projects.
Over the course of its existence, the Belmont Forum has backed 23 Collaborative Research Actions (CRAs), which have supported 177 multilateral and transdisciplinary projects, as well as over 1,000 scientists and stakeholders from over 90 countries. Research funders committed a total amount of 235 million euros to the 23 CRAs.
As part of these actions, the Belmont Forum also brought together over 150 partners to support these projects. Belmont Forum CRAs have addressed various subjects such as freshwater security, coastal vulnerability, food security and land-use change, climate predictability and interregional linkages, biodiversity and ecosystem services, Arctic observation, sustainability science, mountains as sentinels of change, and migration and sustainability. New subjects are developed each year through a scoping process, and then opened up via the Belmont Forum website and its grant operations site.
The Belmont Forum coordinates multilateral calls for funds, operating each call through a single entry point—the Belmont Forum Grants Operating System (BFGo)—and a single, collaborative selection process. The results of Belmont Forum-supported research have demonstrated their added value by promoting multilateral research among scientists and funders, with an increasing number of proposals coordinated by researchers from low-income countries (Belmont Forum Annual Report 2022).
"Turning to indicators of broad dissemination and societal uptake of findings, Belmont Forum’s publications displayed a high level of impact within science advice and governmental research documents." (Evaluation of the Belmont Forum: Final report – 2020 – page xii)
The Belmont Forum works with its members and partners to create a global community for transdisciplinary research practices. To this end, it organizes meetings during the life cycle of each CRA (kick-off, mid-term and end-of-project meetings), which converge around the annual Sustainability, Research, and Innovation Congress (SRI), an international meeting organized in collaboration with Future Earth and host institutions. This global event fosters dialogue within the community, provides important opportunities for skills development, and establishes and strengthens links between sustainability science and society.
In terms of peer-reviewed publications and policy impact, Belmont Forum-supported research accounts for over 1,660 publications (Scopus), and is mentioned in over 7,500 policy documents (Overton).
Belmont Forum-supported research projects respond to strong societal expectations because they facilitate multilateral, transdisciplinary research that involves social partners, and help raise voices that are often marginalised on a global scale. By working across borders, the community leverages international funding to achieve common goals for global environmental change, often linked to commitments made by their respective political organisations within the framework of the United Nations.
Collaborative Research Actions (CRAs) with ANR funding
Since 2012, the ANR has participated in 20 CRAs, for a total of 87 projects involving French partners, and an overall ANR budget of €18 million.
This partnership has notably enabled collaborations between French researchers and their colleagues in 56 different countries.
Find out more about the latest Belmont Forum calls for proposals involving the ANR:
- Belmont Forum - FORESTS 2024: Tropical Forests - Global Implications and Pressing Actions (June 2024 – May 2025)
- Belmont Forum Africa Regional - CRA 2024 (May – December 2024)
- Climate, Environment and Health 2 - Belmont Forum 2023 (March 2023 – January 2024)
- Integrated Approaches to Human Migration/Mobility in an Era of Rapid Global Change - Belmont Forum 2022 (April – August 2022)
- Transdisciplinary Research for Pathways to Sustainability (July – November 2020)
- Towards Sustainability of Soils and Groundwater for Society - Belmont Soils 2021 (April – August 2020)
Events and news
Each year, the Belmont Forum and its partners bring together global research leaders, experts, industry, and innovators to inspire action and to advance sustainability on a global scale through transdisciplinary research and innovation. At the same time, actions specific to the calls for proposals launched are organized to help interested researchers create consortia that meet the requirements and objectives of these calls.
Read the latest news from the Belmont Forum (in French):
- June 2024: 4th edition of the Sustainability Research & Innovation (SRI) congress
- January 2023: Anne-Hélène Prieur-Richard appointed co-President of the Belmont Forum
- June 2022: The Belmont Forum: sustainability in the face of global change
- July 2021: Soil sustainability and groundwater: a look back at the launch meeting for the projects selected by the Belmont Forum call
- April 2021: Sustainable development goals: the results of the Belmont Forum’s “Transdisciplinary research on trajectories towards sustainability” call for proposals
For further information:
Contact: belmontforum(at)anr.fr
Belmont Forum website: https://www.belmontforum.org/
Belmont Forum submission site: www.BFgo.org
