GOBIERNO DE CANARIAS

Their core work

The Gobierno de Canarias is the regional government of the Canary Islands, one of the EU's designated outermost regions. In H2020, they focus on building research capacity in remote island territories, managing biodiversity and ecosystem restoration across terrestrial, aquatic, and marine environments, and improving public health literacy. They act as a policy bridge — translating EU research programmes into regional action on sustainability, climate adaptation, and institutional capacity building in geographically isolated territories.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Early H2020 work (2015–2018) centered on biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and public-facing coordination actions like health literacy and urban waste management. From 2019 onward, the focus shifted decisively toward socio-ecological systems, governance processes, and transdisciplinary approaches to climate adaptation and ecosystem restoration. This reflects a maturation from participating in broad biodiversity networks to actively shaping governance and research capacity in outermost regions.

Moving toward integrated governance of nature-based solutions and climate adaptation, with growing emphasis on transdisciplinary research coordination in island and outermost-region contexts.

How they like to work

GOBCAN splits evenly between leading projects (3 coordinated) and joining as a partner (5 participations), showing confidence in managing EU consortia despite being a regional authority rather than a research institution. With 117 unique partners across 37 countries, they maintain a remarkably wide network — suggesting they function as a connector between European research communities and outermost-region implementation contexts. Their preference for CSA and ERA-NET actions (7 of 8 projects) indicates they excel at coordination, networking, and policy translation rather than deep technical research.

Exceptionally broad network for a regional government: 117 partners across 37 countries, spanning well beyond the EU into global biodiversity and climate research communities. The Macaronesian connection (Canaries, Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde) provides a distinctive geographic anchor.

What sets them apart

As the government of an EU outermost region, GOBCAN offers something few partners can: a real-world laboratory for testing sustainability, climate adaptation, and biodiversity solutions in island and subtropical environments. They bring policy authority and implementation capacity — when they join a project, results can translate directly into regional policy. For any consortium needing an outermost-region dimension or island-territory validation site, they are one of the most experienced partners available.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FORWARD
  Coordinated by GOBCAN, this CSA directly addressed the research capacity gap in EU outermost regions — a niche where few organisations have both the mandate and experience to lead.
• ATHENA
  Their largest single grant (EUR 184,375) and a departure from environmental topics, showing institutional commitment to gender equality reforms in research organisations.
• BiodivRestore
  Part of a chain of three successive biodiversity ERA-NETs (BiodivERsA3 → BiodivClim → BiodivRestore), demonstrating long-term commitment and trusted-partner status in European biodiversity research coordination.