The research projects supported by the BNP Paribas Foundation through its Climate & Biodiversity Initiative are selected through a call for projects every 3 years. The rigorous selection process of each call for projects has a specific governance. Indeed, the Foundation is backed by its Scientific committee composed of world-class researchers: they play a key role in selecting the most promising and outstanding research projects.

In 2022, a new call for projects has been launched in Europe in order to select research projects that better our understanding of climate and biodiversity interactions and their impact on society.

More information

The 3 steps of the selection process

  • Application stage

    Launch of a call for projects among the scientific committee within the European Economic Area (EEA).

  • Evaluation & pre-selection

    of the application files by BNP Paribas employees & external consultants.

  • Final selection of the projects

    by the Foundation’s Scientific committee and vote of the Executive committee to nominate the laureates.

Key figures of the 2019 call for projects

61

eligible projects


44

projects submitted

by universities or research centers

27

preselected projects


A call for projects involving employees, scientific experts & members of the executive committee

The trademark of the BNP Paribas Foundation’s call for projects is that BNP Paribas employees are involved in the selection process. For the 2019 edition, 37 employees representing 11 entities of the Group from 3 countries, and 6 external consultants, followed a specific training to evaluate the applications based on the different eligibility criteria.

During the 1st evaluation stage, each application is evaluated by 5 instructors and is rated based on several criteria such as the project’s scientific merit; the capacity of dissemination & valorization; the international dimension of the project; the team involved; and the impact of funding.

The Scientific committee is then involved in the 2nd step of the selection process. Composed of 8 world-class researchers who have an expertise in climate change & biodiversity, they evaluate and debate about the pre-selected projects. Their favorite projects will then be voted by the Foundation’s Executive committee which is constituted of members of BNP Paribas’ Executive committee and external qualified experts.

The members of the 2022 Scientific committee 

  • Yunne Shin – Director of Research at IRD and Honorary Research Associate at University of Cape Town 
  • Philippe Gillet – Geophysicist, geologist and professor, Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne
  • Philippe Cury – Senior scientist at IRD (French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development)
  • Jean-Pascal van Ypersele – PhD in physics, climatologist, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, where he co-directs the environmental management master’s program. Member of the Earth and Climate Research Centre  
  • Franck Courchamp – CNRS Research Director at the Systematic Ecology and Evolution Laboratory (ESE-CNRS/Université Paris-Sud), 2014 laureate of the “Climate & Biodiversity Initiative” 
  • Jean-Pierre Gattuso – CNRS Research Director at the the Villefranche Oceanography Laboratory (CNRS/Sorbonne University/Iddri), 2010 laureate of the “Climate & Biodiversity Initiative” 
  • Marie-Pierre Ledru – Director of Research at IRD, working at the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences of Montpellier, 2017 laureate of the “Climate & Biodiversity Initiative” 
  • Lydie Lardy – Director of Research in Soil Ecology at IRD, 2017 laureate of the “Climate & Biodiversity Initiative” 

Former members of the Scientific committee 

  • Corinne Le Quéré : Professor of Climate Change Science and Policy at the University of East Anglia, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
  • Sonia Seneviratne : Professor, Institute of Atmosphere and Climate Sciences, ETH Zurich
  • Joanna Haigh : Eremitus Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College in London, co-director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Environment
  • Thomas Stocker : Professor of climate and environmental physics at Berne University, where he chairs the Climate and Environmental Physics Department
  • Riccardo Valentini : Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Tuscia, Italy

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