Organizers & sponsors

OZCAR (Critical Zone Observatories: Research and Application) is a national distributed research infrastructure associating most of the French observation sites dedicated to the observation and monitoring of the Critical Zone.

OZCAR RI is supported by the French Ministry of Education and Research and, includes more than 60 highly instrumented sites/observatories for long-term measurements of biological, chemical and physical parameters of groundwater, river water, glaciers, soils, and wetlands in France and overseas. Each observatory focuses on one or more components of the Critical Zone but importantly OZCAR is covering most of the lateral and vertical compartments of the Critical Zone from mountains to costal areas.

Through environmental data portal and modeling platforms, OZCAR is not only a research infrastructure open to the scientific community, it is also aiming at advising policy makers and stakeholders on the water, soil, and biodiversity resource and the landscape scale.

Global change has triggered a number of environmental changes, such as alterations in climate, land productivity, water resources, atmospheric chemistry, and ecological systems. Finding solutions to the impact of global change is one of the most important challenges of the 21^st century.

TERENO is embarking on new paths with an interdisciplinary and long-term research programme involving five Helmholtz Association Centers. TERENO spans an Earth observation network across Germany that extends from the North German lowlands to the Bavarian Alps. This unique large-scale project aims to catalogue the longterm ecological, social and economic impact of global change at regional level. Scientists and researchers want to use their findings to show how humankind can best respond to these changes.

France's Centre national de la recherche scientifique is one of the world's leading research institutions. Its scientists explore life, matter, the Universe and the workings of human societies to meet the major challenges of today and tomorrow. Internationally recognized for the excellence of its scientific research, the CNRS is a benchmark in the world of research and development, as well as among the general public.

INRAE, the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, is the leading research organization specializing in its three scientific fields, helping to meet challenges such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, food and nutritional security, agricultural transition, preservation of natural resources, restoration of biodiversity, and risk anticipation and management. Through research, innovation and support for public policy, INRAE proposes new directions to accompany the emergence of sustainable agricultural and food systems, and aims to provide solutions for life, people and the Earth.

The Frenco-German University (FGU) is a network of affiliated universities from France, Germany and other countries. Its administrative offices are located in Saarbrücken, Germany. The FGU was established as an international institution following an intergovernmental agreement (the Weimar Agreement) in 1997. The FGU provides expert guidance on relations between French and German universities with the aim of improving cooperation in the areas of university study programmes and research in both countries. The FGU’s main tasks include initiating, coordinating and funding structured academic programmes for each of the three Bologna cycles. These degree programmes are subject to external evaluation by French and German academic experts.

Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development) is an internationally recognised multidisciplinary organisation, committed to equitable partnerships with countries in the Global South and in the French overseas territories for nearly 80 years. As a contributor to the achievement of the international development agenda, the IRD aligns its priorities with the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Together, scientists and the Institute's partners propose concrete solutions to the global challenges facing societies and the planet. This win-win relationship makes science and innovation major levers for development.

BRGM, the French geological survey, is France’s leading public institution for Earth Science applications for the management of surface and sub-surface resources with a view to sustainable development. Under partnerships with numerous public and private stakeholders, BRGM focuses on scientific research, expertise and innovation. Its activity meets 4 objectives: understanding geological phenomena and related risks, developing new techniques and methodologies, producing and distributing data for surface, subsurface and resource management, providing the tools required to manage the surface, subsurface and resources, prevent risks and pollution, and manage policies in response to climate change.

Led by CNRS, the TERRA FORMA project aims to design and deploy a dense network of low-cost, open-source environmental sensors in monitoring areas, to better understand and adapt to ongoing environmental changes. In particular, it aims to advance knowledge and technologies at the interfaces between disciplines, in the service of the Research Infrastructures on Socio-Ecosystems and the Critical Zone (RZA and OZCAR, which together make up the eLTER France network) and for the benefit of open science within the reach of local stakeholders (decision-makers, citizens...).

The ambition of the exploratory PEPR FairCarboN is to enable a quantified assessment at different spatio-temporal scales of the contribution of continental ecosystems to the evolution of C flows and stocks, in the context of global change, and to propose territorial management trajectories capable of informing public policies and stakeholders' decisions. The aim of FairCarboN is to generate much-needed research on continental ecosystems to produce accurate carbon assessments at local, national, European and global levels, with the aim of outlining adoptable strategies towards carbon neutrality by 2050 for each of these levels.

OneWater - Eau Bien Commun is a national research program on continental freshwater co-directed by CNRS, BRGM and INRAE, with 10 academic partners. Faced with increasing climatic and anthropogenic pressures on the environment, this program aims to develop research in the field of water, a vital resource, to change the paradigm and rehabilitate water as a common good. Financed over 10 years by the Plan France 2030, OneWater - Eau Bien Commun is designed to help accelerate transitions and measure the impact of global change on socio-ecosystems through 6 major scientific challenges. By strengthening the dialogue between science and society, OneWater-Eau Bien Commun is helping to federate a multi-stakeholder “water community”.