AXA XL Valuing Nature Award

What is the award focus?

Protecting natural ecosystems is one way to address climate change and a key pillar in AXA XL’s sustainability strategy.

In partnership with AXA Research Fund, this call for nominations is looking to recognize innovative, transdisciplinary research that adopts either a global or regional perspective and highlights the value of nature and its ecosystem services in supporting businesses and communities to strengthen resilience and mitigate the impacts of climate change, particularly in one of the following areas:

• Measuring and quantifying the financial value of preserving or restoring ecosystem services to businesses/society.
• Identifying climate change adaptation and mitigation opportunities resulting from preserving or restoring nature.
• Empowering local communities through the preservation or restoration of natural environments, including the incorporation of indigenous knowledge.
• Evaluating the benefits of restoring degraded ecosystems, including assessing the impact of invasive species on the resilience of ecosystems to climate change impacts.
• Developing scenarios for future ecosystem changes under various climate change and natural ecosystem scenarios (e.g. the introduction of invasive species) and assessing the potential impacts on businesses and communities.

Any related topic that aligns with the themes of the call for nominations can be submitted for consideration for the award, even if it is not explicitly outlined in the above list. Candidates should demonstrate the novelty, innovation, and impact of their research in these areas.

Call for nominations now open

Following a rigorous selection process, the winning researcher will be awarded the “AXA XL Valuing Nature Award” and will be granted €50,000 in recognition of their research.

Here are the steps for the application process:

1. Call for nominations – For NOMINATORS
Tuesday 4th March – Tuesday 1st April at 16:00 CET
A call for nominations will be launched across the academic community to recommend top researchers connected with the topic under investigation. Nominators will be able to submit their nomination(s) via the following link, here.

2. Screening
The Selection Committee will perform pre-selection to ensure requirements are met.

3. Nominee applications - For NOMINEES
Tuesday 8th April – Tuesday 29th April at 16:00 CET
A selection committee will approach pre-selected candidates to inform them of their nomination for the AXA XL Valuing Nature Award and propose that they submit an application as well as share the guidelines and requirements for this Award. Applications must be submitted via the link provided by email by by Tuesday 29th April.

4. Results
Results will be sent by email to researchers by end of May 2025 and announced via a press release on a mutually agreed upon date after the contract between the university, AXA, and AXA XL has been signed.

Meet a previous AXA XL and AXA Research Fund award winner

Dr. Petra Holden, a transdisciplinary conservation scientist at the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, was granted AXA XL’s 2023 Climate Water Nexus award to support her research around nature-based solutions for an equitable, biodiverse, and sustainable climate future. Her research has included attributing the impacts of climate change on water security and quantifying how well nature-based solutions can offset anthropogenic climate change on water-related ecosystem services.

For more information on Petra’s research see Google Scholar, TES NbS, ACDI and read more about the AXA XL Climate Water Nexus Award here.

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