From 4th to 7th November 2025, 34 participants from 19 European countries gathered at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development in Germany to explore collaboration in UNESCO Biosphere Reserves (BRs). Hosted by the Biosphere Reserves Institute (BRI) and supported by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) with funds from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN), the workshop aimed to advance the Lima Action Plan/Hangzhou Strategic Action Plan and the Eberswalde Declaration. It did so by exploring how collaboration takes place in BRs, identifying which projects and actors are active, assessing current collaboration challenges and opportunities, and outlining how collaboration can be further supported and enhanced. The workshop programme included presentations, panel discussions, group work, participatory collaboration mapping and opportunities for informal exchange. Specific themes addressed included: transdisciplinary research, MAB regional and thematic networks and governance. It was noted that collaboration is essential for fulfilling the three MAB functions (conservation, development and logistic support), furthering international and national policy requests, serving peace-building, establishing new BRs, conducting research co-design/transdisciplinary research and solving conflicts. Collaboration takes place across different BRs, on different scales and includes a diverse range of actors. MAB National Committees, as well as regional and thematic networks, have emerged as privileged places for collaboration. Collaboration in the BRs takes place in many forms. Some important practices for collaboration across different contexts include: the creation of spaces for people to come together, focusing on already established good working relations, supporting and engaging youth, cross-country learning, inclusiveness, having a friendly and good-listener attitude and recognising that collaboration requires trust and takes time to develop. Identified challenges included BRs being affected by war, language barriers and differences in legal backgrounds for cross-border BRs, fragmentation in policy and legislative frameworks, lack of staff to coordinate and realise ideas suggested by actors, time constraints among potential partners and the risk of overburdening them, limited financial resources, bureaucracy, little local understanding of what constitutes a BR, fear of restrictions and a lack of communication between local and state governments. Concrete results of this workshop included a newly formed working group with the aim of establishing an informal MAB network on forests and tangible new partnerships for project development. Furthermore, an ongoing table with existing and potential collaborations was created to facilitate mutual learning, encourage new collaborations and support each other. Good collaboration practices shared in this workshop were summarised into a graphic record for widespread communication and learning. Overall, the workshop established that collaboration plays a huge role for BRs and can be improved through both structural changes and personal attitudes and priority settings.
Griestop et al. (Thu,) studied this question.