NATURVARDSVERKET

Their core work

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) is Sweden's central government authority for environmental policy, responsible for setting national environmental quality standards, coordinating biodiversity conservation, and advising the Swedish government on environmental matters. Within H2020, SEPA contributes regulatory expertise and national-level environmental data to European research consortia working on ecosystem services mapping, biodiversity restoration, and human biomonitoring of chemical exposures. Their role bridges policy implementation and scientific research — they bring the perspective of a national regulator that must translate research findings into enforceable environmental and health standards.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early period (2015–2018), SEPA focused heavily on ecosystem services — mapping methodologies, biodiversity strategy, and nature-based solutions for sustainable development. From 2017 onward, their participation broadened significantly into human health and chemical safety through HBM4EU, their largest funded project, which connected environmental contamination to public health outcomes. Most recently (2020+), they have returned to biodiversity but with a stronger governance and transdisciplinary lens, suggesting a maturation from pure environmental science toward integrated policy frameworks that link ecosystems, health, and regulation.

SEPA is moving toward integrated environmental-health governance, combining their biodiversity expertise with chemical exposure monitoring and cross-disciplinary restoration frameworks — making them increasingly relevant for projects at the environment-health nexus.

How they like to work

SEPA participates exclusively as a partner, never as coordinator — consistent with their role as a national regulatory authority that contributes policy expertise and national data rather than leading research agendas. With 209 unique partners across 41 countries, they operate in very large consortia (averaging 40+ partners per project), which reflects their involvement in major European coordination actions and ERA-NET cofund programs. This makes them an accessible partner: they are experienced in large multi-country collaborations and bring the weight of a national government authority without competing for the lead role.

SEPA has built an exceptionally wide network of 209 unique partners spanning 41 countries, reflecting their participation in large pan-European coordination and cofund actions. Their reach extends well beyond the Nordic region into a truly continent-wide collaboration footprint.

What sets them apart

SEPA is not a university or research institute — it is Sweden's national environmental authority, which means it brings regulatory weight, national monitoring data, and direct policy implementation capacity that academic partners cannot offer. For consortium builders, having SEPA on board signals government-level commitment and ensures research outputs have a clear pathway to Swedish and Nordic environmental policy. Their unusual combination of biodiversity expertise and human biomonitoring involvement also makes them one of few public authorities positioned at the intersection of environmental and health regulation.

Highlights from their portfolio

• HBM4EU
  By far their largest funded project (EUR 763,809 — 56% of total funding), representing a major European initiative on human biomonitoring that connected SEPA's environmental mandate to public health outcomes.
• BiodivERsA3
  A flagship ERA-NET cofund (2015-2022) that consolidated European biodiversity research — SEPA's longest-running H2020 involvement, anchoring their core environmental expertise.
• BiodivRestore
  Their most recent project (2020-2026), signaling continued commitment to biodiversity restoration with a new emphasis on governance and transdisciplinary approaches across terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems.