A third ANR call has been published as part of PEPR OneWater, a programme supporting innovative research into water as a common good.

The Programme et Équipement Prioritaire de Recherche (PEPR – Priority Research Programme and Equipment) OneWater, funded by the French Government as part of the France 2030 investment plan, seeks to have a direct and significant impact on the development of societies and territories, with socioeconomic, environmental, health, sociocultural and scientific changes envisaged.

In order to achieve its objective, the PEPR has identified six major scientific challenges:

• Challenge one: Anticipate changes in water resources to enable adaptation.
• Challenge two: Develop a ‘water footprint’ of environmental processes and human activities.
• Challenge three: Develop water as a sentinelle of the environment health and human societies along the land-water-sea continuum.
• Challenge four: Propose solutions to promote the adaptability and resilience of sociohydrosystems.
• Challenge five (transversal): Supporting the transition to a new governance of resources for a sustainable and resilient society.
• Challenge six (transversal): Sharing water data for knowledge and action.

The 2026 call for proposals, operated by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR – French National Research Agency), aims to support the development of original projects addressing the six challenges. The call aims to support project complementary to those already undertaken, including the eight targeted projects and the projects funded from the prior calls. The call will prioritise research on the following themes:

• Water and anthropisation: considering water uses and their effects (quantitative and qualitative dimensions) to better anticipate management systems in a context of global change.
• Water and health: addressing human and environmental health issues (both current and future) linked to water using a One Health approach.
• Water and life: considering the dynamics of biodiversity on all organisational levels (from genes to socio-ecosystems) within territories in a context of global change.
• Water in the overseas territories: issues and perspectives of challenges related to water in unique territories.

Projects for the 2026 call must be supported by a consortium of at least three French higher education and/or research establishments from at least two different academic sites. The coordinating institution must be a French higher education and research institution.

Requested grants per project must be between €800,000 and €1.5 million for a duration of 3-4 years.