HARMON project: A Seed Money Facility success story

How Seed Money Facility fuels strategic initiatives in the Danube region.

The Danube region spans 14 countries, each striving to balance economic growth with environmental preservation. Large-scale infrastructure projects, particularly transport networks, are essential for development, yet they often come at the cost of disconnecting wildlife habitats and ecological networks. To address the challenge of balancing biodiversity conservation with infrastructure development, support from the Seed Money Facility (SMF) of the Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) proved invaluable.

Through small but focused grant, the SMF enabled foundational work of the "Harmonization of Green and Grey Infrastructure in the Danube Region" (HARMON) project, setting it out to identify common needs, and existing best practices for harmonizing biodiversity with development acorss the region, preparing it for subsequent larger EU funding from other sources.

Laying the foundations

At the core of the HARMON project, launched in 2018, was the aim to develop a unified approach to harmonizing green and grey infrastructure across the Danube region, and create a strategic action plan to guide future projects, supporting the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR).

The project's main contribution was the development of parameters for assessment of the state of play / status quo in harmonization of green and grey infrastructure in the Danube region. These parameters, grouped into four categories—(A) Policy and Strategies, (B) Planning and Environmental Impact Assessment, (C) Implementation and Management, and (D) Education, Awareness, Consultation, and Communication—were designed to enable consistent interpretation and comparison of harmonization efforts. recommend that transnational or multiple-countries initiatives should consider this approach which highlights common objectives and existing know-how in the field of harmonization

This approach is particularly useful as it highlights existing "know-how" that transnational or multi-country initiatives should consider, especially in southeastern European countries, where accelerated transport infrastructure development is both necessary and imminent.

HARMON project partnership composition. Source: www.keep.eu

Leveraging SMF success for larger EU funding

The insights gained from HARMON were instrumental in shaping the Horizon 2020 “Biodiversity and Infrastructure Synergies and Opportunities for European Transport Networks” (BISON) project, which ran from 2021 to 2024. Building on HARMON’s work, the BISON project developed criteria for assessing the alignment of national transport policies with EU environmental strategies and established recommendations for policy harmonization at a European level.

In 2020, the SaveGREEN project took also HARMON’s foundational work a step further. This project, supported by the Danube Transnatioanl Programme, focused on fostering cooperation across multiple sectors and stakeholders, aiming to integrate ecological connectivity into regional planning at a landscape level. By involving key regional actors, including various EUSDR National Coordinators, the Carpathian Convention, and the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), SaveGREEN encouraged the endorsement of the Joint Declaration on “Achieving functional biodiversity in the Danube-Carpathian Region by mainstreaming ecological connectivity” in 2022, a commitment to preserving biodiversity at a regional scale.

Another of the of HARMON’s lasting contributions is the GreenWeb platform, a collaborative network of experts committed to promoting biodiversity and infrastructure harmonization. Recognized as a Regional Working Group for Eastern Europe and the Balkans within the Infrastructure and Ecology Network Europe (IENE) - leading expert organization in Europe on mainstreaming biodiversity into transport sector, GreenWeb has the capacity to provide best solutions in the intersection of green and grey infrastructure.

SaveGREEN project field visit in Romania in 2022.

HARMON 2: capacity building and looking forward

Building on these achievements, the DRP Seed Money Facility has approved the follow-up project, HARMON 2 (2024–2025), titled “Addressing Capacity Building Needs for Mainstreaming Biodiversity in the Transport Sector of the Danube Region.” HARMON 2 addresses a crucial gap identified in earlier projects: the lack of integrated expertise among key actors needed to mainstream biodiversity in the transport sector.

HARMON 2 aims to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration by developing a training curriculum with universities and professional practitioners. This curriculum will be part of a hub for practical, integrated education focused on biodiversity in infrastructure. The goal is to ensure that graduates enter the workforce with the expertise to tackle the complexities of biodiversity-focused transport planning, making sustainable, biodiversity-conscious infrastructure development a reality in the Danube region.