STICHTING WETLANDS INTERNATIONAL

Their core work

Wetlands International is a global conservation NGO dedicated to the protection and restoration of wetland ecosystems — rivers, lakes, peatlands, floodplains, and coastal marshes. Their core work spans ecological field research, policy advocacy, and on-the-ground restoration projects across all continents, with a particular focus on wetlands as natural infrastructure for water security, biodiversity, and climate regulation. In EU research, they act as domain specialists and policy-network connectors, contributing wetland science expertise, practitioner knowledge, and access to international governance channels that academic partners rarely have. They translate research outputs into conservation policy, making them uniquely valuable in projects where scientific findings need to reach regulators, water managers, and communities.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first H2020 engagement (SWOS, 2015–2018), Wetlands International contributed to satellite-based monitoring technology — a data and observation focus with minimal policy dimension recorded. By the WaterLANDS project (2021–2026), the thematic frame had shifted substantially toward governance, financial instruments, just transition, and participatory design, reflecting a broader field-wide turn toward systemic enablers of nature restoration rather than monitoring alone. The trajectory points clearly toward policy-finance interfaces: carbon markets, nature-based solution funding mechanisms, and inclusive community processes are becoming central to their EU project contributions.

They are moving from technical observation tools toward the policy and financial architecture needed to scale wetland restoration — making them an increasingly relevant partner for projects at the intersection of environmental governance, carbon markets, and social transition.

How they like to work

Wetlands International has participated in both H2020 projects as a consortium partner, never as coordinator — consistent with an NGO that brings specialist knowledge and external networks rather than project management infrastructure. With 45 unique partners across only 2 projects, they clearly operate in large, multi-country consortia where their value is breadth of reach and real-world credibility rather than technical leadership. This makes them a reliable anchor for the stakeholder engagement, policy dissemination, and field-practice translation that research consortia typically struggle to deliver on their own.

Wetlands International has worked with 45 distinct consortium partners across 16 countries in just two projects, pointing to deep integration into large European and international research networks on environment and climate. Given their global footprint as an NGO, their collaborative reach almost certainly extends well beyond the EU partners visible in CORDIS data.

What sets them apart

Unlike academic research groups or technical consultancies, Wetlands International brings both scientific legitimacy and direct operational presence in the field — they manage restoration sites, advise governments, and maintain practitioner networks on every continent. This means research outputs co-developed with them have a credible pathway to real-world adoption that a university partner alone cannot provide. For consortia working on nature-based solutions, biodiversity targets, or water-climate policy, they offer access to channels — regulators, conservation bodies, land managers, community groups — that are otherwise hard to reach from a research environment.

Highlights from their portfolio

• WaterLANDS
  The largest-funded project in their H2020 portfolio (EUR 721,052, running to 2026) and the clearest signal of their strategic direction — integrating carbon storage science with policy, finance, and social justice dimensions of large-scale wetland restoration.
• SWOS
  Their earliest H2020 engagement (2015–2018) demonstrates cross-disciplinary reach: an NGO contributing domain expertise to a satellite earth-observation technology project, which is an unusual and valuable combination.