Phosphorus, politics and water for a more resilient world
ERC frontier research at work in science diplomacy
When scientists follow their curiosity, they rarely picture their work turning up in policy briefings or on negotiation tables. Yet ERC Synergy Grants projects, which bring together teams of researchers across disciplines and borders, often end up grappling with the very challenges that preoccupy diplomats: fragile political orders, critical raw materials and infrastructures under climate and social stress. This article highlights three such examples: projects that offer new maps, models and ideas to help governments navigate some of their most sensitive decisions.
Understanding politics in a turbulent neighbourhood
CLOSER asks a simple but demanding question: how do politics work in societies shaped by empire, authoritarian rule, deep social divides and recurring conflict? It brings together researchers across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to build a comparative picture of governance, social change and conflict, with the aim of informing debates on democracy, political stability and migration.
For diplomats and policymakers, this analysis offers a sharp lens on a region where external actors often work with blurred images of domestic politics. Insights from CLOSER can help them think through what a new electoral law might mean for party dynamics, whether banning a movement is likely to radicalise its supporters, or how cross‑sectarian parties can be supported rather than inadvertently weakened. In that way, the project lends real substance to frequently used terms such as ‘inclusive governance’ and ‘political stability.’
The project’s design is itself a quiet exercise in science diplomacy. ‘The project's collaborative nature enables versatility and the adoption of an in‑depth perspective that would not be possible otherwise’, says Jan Zouplna from the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic. ‘We intend to build a diverse group of researchers from different disciplines and countries. I believe there is a certain element of diplomacy in it. Moreover, the project’s theoretical input aims to challenge both the imposition of Western norms and the exclusiveness of national exceptionalisms, taking a sort of bridge‑building position between the two.’
For Clément Steuer from the Institute of International Relations Prague, social cleavages are where the scientific and diplomatic stakes meet. ‘Understanding social cleavages is key to the stability and the prospects of democracy in the region. Our studies may show how development policies focusing on reducing territorial inequalities create better conditions for the viability of future democratic systems. We intend to dialogue with policymakers and civil society organisations to give them more elements for better decision-making.’ Here, science diplomacy is not an add‑on, but part of the project’s strategy: building a shared evidence base for those directly involved in choices about reforms and development.
Such work takes time. ‘Conducting research into electoral issues in the Middle East or North Africa is a lengthy and difficult task: data is scattered and limited and must be collected with patience; it is unreliable and requires a tailored approach; and the existing body of knowledge on which to draw is still limited. Only long‑term research combining different approaches and sources can carry this out successfully’, notes Gilles Van Hamme from the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Precisely because it is slow and painstaking, CLOSER leaves something lasting behind: not only new theories and datasets, but also networks of trust between researchers, and between research communities and policy actors on both shores of the Mediterranean – the essential, often invisible infrastructure of science diplomacy.
CLOSER - Party Systems and Social Cleavages in the Post-Ottoman Space of the MENA Region
Phosphorus and the rise of P‑diplomacy
If carbon dominates climate negotiations, phosphorus quietly determines whether the world can feed itself. Every loaf of bread, every plate of pasta depends on phosphorus‑based fertilisers. Yet the element is finite, unequally distributed in the Earth’s crust and easily lost from soils and waterways.
IMBALANCE‑P set out to understand what that means for ecosystems, food production and the planet, bringing together a four‑PI team in France, Belgium, Austria and Spain to link ecosystem science, Earth‑system modelling and socio‑economic analysis. The team mapped phosphorus cycles through soils, crops and rivers, how much is locked up in long‑lived stocks, and where losses undermine productivity or damage biodiversity.
One striking finding is the extreme geographical concentration of high‑grade phosphate rock: a small group of countries controls most economically viable reserves, while many food‑importing regions depend heavily on fertiliser trade. In a world of trade disputes, sanctions and wars, that concentration translates directly into vulnerability for global food systems and creates potential for geopolitical coercion over what is increasingly seen as a critical raw material. These findings transform phosphorus from a technical agricultural input into a matter of strategic concern.
For Josep Peñuelas from the Global Ecology Unit of CREAF-CSIC Barcelona, the Synergy format was essential to reach that level of insight. ‘The Synergy Grant enabled a level of transdisciplinary, cross‑border collaboration that was previously out of reach,’ he says. ‘It empowered our team to integrate laboratory research, large‑scale ecosystem experiments, metadata gathering and analyses, and global modelling to address a critical knowledge gap: how phosphorus limitation, exacerbated by anthropogenic inputs of carbon and nitrogen, constrains the Earth's carbon sink and food production. The results of IMBALANCE‑P have profoundly advanced our understanding of the stoichiometry of global nutrient cycles and their regulation of planetary boundaries.’
That scientific advance has direct diplomatic implications. ‘IMBALANCE‑P delivered critical, evidence‑based insights that bridge fundamental biogeochemistry with global policy needs,’ Peñuelas notes. ‘By demonstrating how pervasive nutrient imbalances, specifically phosphorus limitation, constrain both climate change mitigation and agricultural sustainability, our findings have provided an essential roadmap for international cooperation. They have supported the development of integrated nutrient management strategies necessary to achieve global sustainability goals.’
In practice, this means ministries of agriculture, environment and foreign affairs can now talk about phosphorus security with a shared evidence base – from the implications of export restrictions and purity claims to the benefits of recycling phosphorus from waste streams, and the trade‑offs between agricultural yields and eutrophication.
The project's findings have already informed policy discussions. The European Commission's Critical Raw Materials Act now lists phosphate rock, and several countries are investing in phosphorus recovery from wastewater - measures that might have seemed purely technical a decade ago but are now understood as strategic imperatives
By treating phosphorus as a finite, unevenly distributed strategic resource, and quantifying how its scarcity and mismanagement ripple through ecosystems and food systems, the project has helped lay the foundations for what some observers call ‘P‑diplomacy’: international efforts to secure phosphorus supplies, reduce waste and protect water quality without shifting risks onto the most vulnerable.
IMBALANCE‑P - Effects of Phosphorus Limitations on Life, Earth system and Society
Reimagining urban water systems
If phosphorus is a hidden linchpin of food security, drinking water is the most tangible of critical services. Drinking a glass of water is deceptively simple; behind it lies a vast web of pipes, treatment plants and institutions. Yet the infrastructure that brings clean water to taps in cities around the world is under mounting pressure from climate change, pollution, ageing networks and social inequalities.
Water‑Futures responds to this challenge by rethinking how decisions about urban water systems are made. The project explores how cities can balance sometimes competing goals: reliability and resilience during extreme events; affordability for households; energy use and greenhouse‑gas emissions; and impacts on rivers and aquifers. Its models and tools are explicitly linked to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, especially to SDG 6 on clean water and sanitation, but they also touch upon SDG 11 (sustainable cities) and SDG 13 (climate action).
As with phosphorus, this re‑thinking of water systems has clear implications for international cooperation and diplomacy around resilience and the SDGs. ‘Strategic planning for water infrastructure is often approached as a technical problem only, yet decisions need to increasingly be made under deep uncertainty,’ says Dragan Savić, Professor of Hydroinformatics at the University of Exeter. ‘Under these conditions, conventional planning approaches, built around a single forecast or a limited set of predefined scenarios, tend to lock in assumptions too early, increasing the risk of over-design, under-design or maladaptation.’
Water‑Futures aims to advance scenario‑based planning methods for urban water systems. Teams across five countries consider multiple possible climate futures, demographic trends and regulatory changes, and help utilities or city governments test how different investment paths – from new treatment plants and network upgrades to demand‑management measures – might perform across these scenarios.
‘We introduced physics‑informed graph neural networks as a ‘spatial map’ for water, embedding hydraulic laws to predict contamination or flow risks in real time,’ Savić notes. ‘However, technical solutions must be ‘socially rooted’ and time‑varying and experience‑specific preferences (like a disaster‑triggered willingness to pay for flood protection) must inform policy. Therefore, we engage communities and stakeholders early to ensure solutions align with social values and local budget constraints.’
These questions sit squarely in current policy debates. The European Water Resilience Strategy explicitly identifies digitalisation, including AI, as a route to improved water management, and calls for planning that fully reflects long‑term climate scenarios to avoid stranded investments.
This gives the project a natural science‑diplomacy role. ‘Partners from the United States, Brazil and Japan who face similar water‑security and investment challenges are interested in adapting our approaches to their own regulatory and social contexts,’ says Savić. ‘By providing a transparent, SDG‑aligned analytical framework, we hope to give cities, national governments and development banks a common language for negotiating water‑security investments and for turning high‑level commitments on water and climate resilience into concrete, evidence‑based action.’
Water‑Futures – Designing the Next Generation of Urban Drinking Water Systems
