Blanca Gonzalez García-Mon and Jamila Haider receive early-career research grants worth 6 million SEK each. Laura Pereira’s project, awarded a 3,4 million SEK grant, plans to combine biodiversity conservation and sustainable food systems by advocating for multifunctional protected areas. She aims to bridge the gap between society and nature by promoting agroecological practices and thus leading the way to a transformation of European food systems. Jan received a 5,7 million SEK grant for his project that aims to integrate people’s benefits of lakes into governance processes to improve lake management. Thorsten’s project, awarded with a 3.4 million SEK grant investigates nature-based solutions for the use of high north marine biodiversity and ecosystems services.