PRO-COAST will develop, apply and validate a cutting-edge operational framework in the study of coastal ecosystem dynamics for the benefit of the population most exposed to risk deriving from biodiversity loss. Such a framework needs to tackle the complex social-ecological issues at hand, particularly so because these issues involve a dynamic perspective on the social as well as its interaction with the ecological system. Hence, the PRO-COAST framework will be based on the integrative Social Ecological Systems framework (SESF), based on the seminal work of the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom. PRO-COAST will apply and validate its holistic framework for identifying the interactions and dynamics of the different subsystems in a set of nine representative case studies located on the European continent, both in EU and non-EU areas, covering all five European coastal regions. The coastal ecosystem is the common thread running through all the case studies, but each one presents a specific issue and framework. In each case study we will co-create together with local stakeholders a set of tools and policies for the successful implementation of biodiversity conservation projects. Two approaches (the Bristol Approach & the Extreme Citizen Science (ECS) framework) to co-creation will be used to develop and establish a participative approach, which is, by virtue, responsive to local contexts. In line with PRO-COAST’s overall objective to increase capacity and resilience within the transformative communities a change process will be initiated, taking into account technical and social capacity. While the technical side of the change comprises new technologies and services regarding biodiversity, the social side of the change focuses on the human’s openness and readiness for change. To achieve its goals, PRO-COAST brings together 20 organisations across 14 different countries, selected on criteria of experience, expertise and most of all complementarity and interdisciplinarity.

The strategic objective of PRO-CLIMATE is to support communities to proactively adapt to climate change through social transformation and behavioural change. To achieve this, PRO-CLIMATE will identify social tipping points and policy actions that enable systemic transformation to be achieved across social systems. PRO-CLIMATE will adopt an approach guided by the concept of systems thinking, which views communities as complex systems that are interconnected and influenced by multiple factors, socio-economic and environmental. By understanding and leveraging their dynamics, it will then develop strategies and interventions that promote social transformation and behavioural change. This will result in a robust framework for designing effective methodologies and tools to foster proactively adaptive behaviours and facilitate transformative changes. A set of diverse (in terms of climate change problems and socio-economic contexts) case studies across Europe will be an instrumental tool for the co-creation, validation, and upscaling of this framework by running living labs and bringing stakeholders together to understand community governance and institutional structures, and to also pilot and validate the project's behaviour change activities. The outputs of PRO-CLIMATE will include: a) the identification of key components of climate adaptation systems, their interactions, systemic interdependencies and trade-offs, b) the design, implementation, and evaluation of a living lab framework, c) the identification of social tipping points and leverage actions for policy makers, d) the development of a multi agent computer model for European socio-ecological systems to allow a realistic analysis of existing and future policy scenarios likely to produce systemic transformations, and e) policy recommendations to accelerate systemic change.