The Collaborative Horizons for All-island Nature and Governance Enhancement (CHANGE) project is a cross-border initiative designed to strengthen environmental governance and cooperation in response to increasing regulatory divergence and shared ecological challenges in a post-Brexit context. Delivered in partnership by Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL) and the Irish Environmental Network (IEN), the project supports collaboration, evidence-led policy development, and capacity-building among environmental organisations, public bodies, and communities across Northern Ireland and Ireland.
CHANGE will assess the extent to which policy and regulatory approaches have diverged in both jurisdictions, identifying where this is creating risks, inefficiencies, or missed opportunities for collaboration. Alongside this, the project will consolidate existing cross-border environmental datasets and undertake a comprehensive gap analysis to highlight where data is missing or incompatible for crucial informed decision-making and shared monitoring.
Through a structured consultation process, the project will bring together environmental NGOs, public authorities, researchers, and local communities to collaboratively develop a framework for cross-border environmental consultation and cooperation. These consultations will underpin the co-design of a series of strategic action plans tailored to the specific challenges and opportunities presented by regulatory divergence. These plans will be rooted in local knowledge, stakeholder priorities, and shared goals, and will be tested through pilot initiatives that demonstrate practical, scalable approaches to cooperation.
A key component of the project involves the collection and cataloguing of environmental data across Ireland, a data gap analysis and the development of a shared knowledge portal.
The CHANGE project is supported by PEACEPLUS, a programme managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).