Within the framework of the Francqui Chair of Prof. D. Ellsworth on “Natural capital under climate change”, ELI researchers actively contributed to develop a vision for long-term research on natural capital and its sensitivities to climate change in a fragmented landscape. The vision is edited in a White Paper. Research designed to evaluate the impacts of environmental changes and extreme events affecting our natural capital, underpins effective decision-making for management and policy. To achieve this, long-term research on natural capital, a landscape context, and a strong capability to quantify climate perturbations to ecosystem carbon cycles and belowground assets of ecosystems are considered crucial. The human side of natural capital research is viewed as central to the next decade of advancement, and increasing training opportunities for young scientists in this area as well as building research capacity the global south are advocated. Research innovation involving our natural capital is imperative to move forward on practical, management and policy decisions for climate change adaptation