Work packages

Work Package 1 (WP1) plays a foundational role in VALOR, supporting other work packages and ensuring the effective engagement of stakeholders at both regional and international levels in order to co-develop ideas and understand how research affects policy development. Work Package 1 will be:

1. Conducting a discourse analysis of key EU and focal region actors. This will help us understand how pollinators are perceived in policy and governance and assess their role in decision-making processes. 
2. Working closely with the steering committee and other stakeholders through workshops and interviews to expand the widely used UNSSP scenario narratives. By incorporating pollinator-relevant perspectives, we aim to create meaningful, stakeholder-driven frameworks that support informed decision-making.
3. Collaborating with stakeholders from across policy, practice, business and NGOs, to understand their different needs and co-design practical tools that enhance the accessibility and usability of project outputs. These tools will ensure that VALOR’s findings are effectively communicated and applied in real-world contexts. 
4. Holding a regular forum to facilitate dialogue between partners and stakeholders, ensuring continuous input and feedback. This iterative process will guide the joint construction of demonstration case studies, enhancing the relevance and impact of VALOR’s findings.

Work Package 2 (WP2) will bring together the scattered knowledge on key animal pollinators and the benefits of pollination services to cultivated and wild plants and expand our understanding of the status of pollinators. WP2 will create:

1. An up-to-date and open-access database detailing how animal pollination influences crop yield, quality, nutritional value, and economic output across Europe and beyond.
2. A new database of evidence on the cultural significance of pollinators and their role in supporting other ecosystem services, such as soil fertility (through legumes like clovers) and erosion control (via pollinated plants). 
3. An assessment of how pollination service links are vulnerable across different biogeographic regions, including EU overseas territories.
4. A synthesis of existing data to determine the most critical pollinator species for both crop and non-crop plants across Europe, including European overseas regions.
5. An outline of indicator databases to enhance natural capital modelling, ensuring alignment with current and upcoming EU datasets. This will improve decision-making frameworks for pollinator conservation and ecosystem management.

Work Package 3 (WP3) integrates advanced ecological field research and modelling to enhance our understanding of pollinators' roles in sustaining both natural and human-modified ecosystems, and the cascading impacts of pollinator losses on these systems. WP3 will conduct:

1. Detailed ecological field studies in each focal region to assess how variations in pollination services influence key wild plant species. 
2. Comprehensive assessments of plant-pollinator and food web interactions to determine how pollinators contribute to functional and stable ecological networks at the landscape level.
3. Refinements of existing process-based models of pollinator populations within broader landscapes to better capture the impacts of resource competition. 
4. Modelling of how various environmental pressures impact the persistence of plant-pollinator networks across different habitats.
5. Spatial modelling to assess how European ecosystems, including culturally significant landscapes, are vulnerable to pollinator declines. 

Work Package 4 (WP4) examines the economic and social dependencies on pollination services at a local scale, moving beyond simple economic valuation to assess broader farm business profitability and cultural significance. Through new data collection and modelling, WP4 will:

1. Use agronomic modelling to assess the relationship between pollinator visitation and crop yield, accounting for other key agricultural inputs.
2. Conduct detailed surveys to integrate pollination benefits into farm profitability models in our seven focal regions.
3. Apply multi-input production function models to determine how farms can withstand pollination service shifts over time.
4. Engage stakeholders through workshops and interviews to understand the direct and indirect cultural values of pollinators in our seven focal regions. 
5. Assess the costs and benefits of farm-level adaptations to pollination service losses, co-developing recommendations with stakeholders.

Work Package 5 (WP5) will expand knowledge on how pollination services influence economic actors throughout the value chain, from agricultural production to food systems and global trade. Breaking new ground, our work in VALOR will: 

1. Map the structure of key value chains, identifying actors in food, feed, material, energy, and medicinal crop production and assessing their economic reliance on pollination. 
2. Conduct economic modelling and stakeholder interviews to explore how businesses can mitigate the impacts of pollinator declines. 
3. Evaluate global trade risks, analysing how pollinator losses in different regions could disrupt European agrifood systems. 
4. Assess how pollinator declines affect food affordability, nutritional availability, and environmental sustainability.

Work Package 6 (WP6) will combine ecological-economic modelling with scenario narratives to explore how resilient landscapes are to future shifts in pollinators, and what the impacts of pollinator losses might be.  Using co-developed scenarios, WP6 will:

1. Examine how economic factors indirectly drive the pressures facing pollinators at a European scale. 
2. Develop regional-scale ecological-economic models to predict how farmers may respond to future environmental and economic conditions. 
3. Explore the broader impacts of pollinator losses, integrating insights from WP3 (pollinator networks), WP4 (farm-level impacts), and WP5 (value chains). 
4. Identify and evaluate policy interventions that could enhance the resilience of pollinators and mitigate potential biodiversity losses.

Work Package 7 (WP7) will improve the availability, accessibility and accuracy of resources for assessing the pollination-related dependencies and impacts of policy, the public and businesses of all sizes and sectors to relevant actors. Working closely with stakeholders throughout the process, this WP will: 

1. Synthesise project findings to develop metrics and guidelines for integrating pollination services into business and policy decision-making (e.g., ESG frameworks).
2. Incorporate VALOR’s findings into existing decision-support tools, such as ENCORE, to improve risk assessment and mitigation advice for financial institutions and policymakers.
3. Build a new tool for farmers, land managers and NGOs to examine the spatial impacts of landscape decisions on pollinators, building on the existing INCA maps of pollinator natural capital.
4. Produce an accessible handbook that consolidates VALOR’s methodologies and models into a single, easy-to-read source that stakeholders can use to apply to their own problems. 
5. Integrate VALOR’s findings into an expanded version of Safe-Hub, the online portal developed in the Safeguard project, to provide public-facing case studies and datasets.

Work Package 8 (WP8) will oversee project coordination, ensuring effective collaboration, dissemination, and stakeholder engagement throughout the project’s duration. Throughout the project, WP8 will: 

1. Establish project coordination structures, including quality assurance mechanisms and a gender action plan.
2. Develop the project’s visual identity, branding, and communication materials
3. Implement a data management plan, ensuring FAIR data principles are applied.
4. Create a Plan for Exploitation, Dissemination, and Communication (PEDR) to guide VALOR’s outreach activities.
5. Facilitate continuous engagement with stakeholders to maximise the project’s impact.
6. Establish collaboration pathways with other research initiatives focused on pollinators, agricultural sustainability, and food systems.

Work Package 9 (WP9) will ensure that VALOR complies with research ethics and GDPR throughout the project.