BOS+ VLAANDEREN VZW

Their core work

BOS+ Vlaanderen is a Flemish non-profit organization focused on forests, trees, and green spaces in Belgium — their name literally means "Forest+" in Dutch. In EU research, they act as a civil society bridge between urban ecology science and practical implementation, contributing field knowledge on urban tree management, green infrastructure governance, and community engagement. In CLEARING HOUSE, they provided practitioner insight on how urban forests function as nature-based solutions and how cities can govern their green infrastructure more effectively. Beyond research participation, they campaign for forest protection and urban greening across Flanders, giving them credibility and networks with municipalities, landowners, and policymakers that academic partners typically lack.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 project (2019) placed them entirely within urban ecology — urban trees, green infrastructure, ecological connectivity, and nature-based solutions for cities. By 2021 they had joined a completely different track: science outreach, science education, gender diversity in research, and public celebration of women scientists. This is not a natural progression within one domain but a lateral move, suggesting BOS+ is actively diversifying into science communication and public engagement work beyond their environmental core.

BOS+ appears to be broadening from purely environmental practice into science-society interface work, making them a candidate for projects that need both ecological domain knowledge and a trusted civil society voice for public engagement or dissemination.

How they like to work

BOS+ has participated exclusively as a non-coordinating partner — they have never led an H2020 project. Despite only two projects, they engaged with 31 unique partners across 12 countries, indicating they join large, multi-institutional European consortia rather than small teams. As an NGO, their typical contribution is civil society legitimacy, practitioner networks, and public engagement capacity — the kind of partner that helps research projects reach beyond academic circles into real-world implementation and policy uptake.

With 31 unique consortium partners across 12 countries from just two projects, BOS+ connects into wide international research networks well above what their modest funding suggests. Their reach is European, with likely concentration in northern and western European countries engaged in urban ecology and science communication research.

What sets them apart

BOS+ occupies a rare niche as a practitioner environmental NGO with genuine on-the-ground forest and urban greening experience in Flanders, offering credibility with municipalities and the public that academic partners cannot replicate. For urban ecology or nature-based solutions projects, they bring validated stakeholder access and field implementation knowledge alongside the civil society legitimacy that strengthens dissemination and policy impact work. Their secondary science outreach capability also makes them useful for projects with a public communication mandate tied to sustainability themes.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CLEARING HOUSE
  Their primary and best-funded project (EUR 141,125, running 2019–2024), focused on building a collaborative learning framework for urban forest governance across European and Chinese cities — an unusually long and internationally scoped initiative for an NGO of this size.
• WISENIGHT
  A science outreach event project (EUR 4,250) celebrating women researchers in natural and space sciences, demonstrating BOS+'s emerging role as a public-facing science communicator beyond their core environmental mission.