Safeguard brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe’s capacity to reverse the losses of wild pollinators.

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PollinERA aims to reverse pollinator population declines and reduce the harmful impact of pesticides by developing a new systems-based environmental risk assessment (ERA) scheme, tools and protocols for a broad range of toxicological testing, feeding to in silico models.

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WildPosh aims to enhance the risk assessment of pesticide exposure in wild pollinators in Europe by conducting fieldwork in four European regions, developing controlled experiments, and collecting in silico data on pollinator traits and pesticide toxicity.

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The overall aim of STEP is to assess the current status and trends of pollinators in Europe, quantify the relative importance of various drivers and impacts of change, identify relevant mitigation strategies and policy instruments, and disseminate this to a wide range of stakeholders. This aim is underpinned by 7 specific objectives which reflect the overall work programme of STEP which can be found on the website.

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SUPER-B will combine scientific evidence (existing and new knowledge) and social feedback for developing conservation strategies for pollinators.

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PoshBee aims to support healthy bee populations, sustainable beekeeping and pollination across Europe. Integrating the knowledge and experience of academics, beekeepers and farmers, PoshBee will provide the first pan-European quantification of the exposure hazard of chemicals to managed and wild bees, determine how chemicals alone, in mixtures, and in combination with pathogens and nutrition, affect bee health, and meet the need for monitoring tools, novel screening protocols, and practice- and policy-relevant research outputs to local, national, European, and global stakeholders.

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NutriB2  aims to gain a better understanding of the complex relationships between wild bees’ nutrition, interaction with pathogens, bees’ health and their diversity. The project will study the nutritional dietary demands of European wild bee species, the supply of nutrients in their food offered by different plant species as well as toxic compounds, both natural and of human origin, that are present in this food.

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A four-year research grant, launched in 2025, supports research on urban pollinating insects. 

The project aims to study urban pollinators by five priorities:

1) Explore the effectiveness of pollinator-promoting interventions;

2) Disentangle local and landscape-scale factors;

3) Develop simple sampling methods;

4) Investigate microclimate dependencies;

5) Work on European and global-level syntheses.

To achieve these, researchers are monitoring flowers and pollinators in parks, road verges, and ‘bee pastures’ mostly in Budapest, Hungary; developing novel approaches; collaborating in EU-level research. These studies also embrace the ambitious vision of creating multi-functional, resilient, and green infrastructures. 

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Reversing the decline of pollinators is an objective of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.

In 2023, the Commission adopted the Revision of the EU Pollinator Initiative – A new deal for pollinators, which updates and expands the EU Pollinators Initiative that was first published in 2018.

The initiative provides a comprehensive action framework to tackle the causes of pollinator decline.

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