ALARM research focuses on assessment and forecast of changes in biodiversity and in structure, function, and dynamics of ecosystems. This relates to ecosystem services and includes the relationship between society, economy and biodiversity. In particular, risks arising from climate change, environmental chemicals, biological invasions and pollinator loss in the context of current and future European land-use patterns will be assessed.

The knowledge on the concerted action of all these factors is poor and ALARM will be the first research initiative with the critical mass needed to deal with such aspects of combined impacts and their consequences.

In order to achieve the objectives mentioned above, ALARM consists of seven modules: four natural science modules, the socio-economics module, a sixth module of cross-cutting analyses of multiple pressures across landscapes, and a seventh module which includes training activities, dissemination of scientific results, promulgation of toolkits as well as information and expert systems developed and tested within ALARM.