EU BON ICP

GEO Week 2017, Washington DC

Mon, 24 Apr 2017 15:17:00 +0300

This year's GEO Week will take place from 23-28 Ovtober in Washington, D.C. Main highlight will be the GEO’s Fourteenth Plenary Meeting, to be held on 25 & 26 October, focusing on the delivery of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems.

The GEO Plenary is the annual meeting of GEO’s 104 Member governments and 109 Participating Organizations, such as the European Space Agency (ESA), JAXA, NOAA, NASA, USGS,, United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank and Observers such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Secretariat on Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM).

The Plenary is preceded by Side Events organized through the GEO community and featuring global initiatives and activities to improve use of satellite, atmospheric and in situ Earth observations for better decision making.

Expect to see events focused on national and regional best practices to implement and measure the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as Disaster Relief and measuring and mitigating the impacts of Climate Change.

More information here: http://www.earthobservations.org/article.php?id=202

BioSyst.EU's Third Meeting

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 11:34:00 +0200

The third meeting of the BioSyst.EU will be organized by the Swedish Systematics Association, Sweden and will take place in Gothenburg in August 14–18, 2017. More information on the meeting will be published in February-March 2016.

For more infromation visist: http://www.biosyst.eu/

11th GEO European Project Workshop 2017

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 15:15:00 +0200

The 11th GEO European Projects Workshop will take place in Helsinki between 19-21 June 2017.

The purpose of the conference is to bring together European stakeholders interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS). The event is a forum to exchange ideas and inform participants about work and initiatives undertaken in the context of GEOSS.

The conference is organised by the European Commission and Finish Meteorological Institute.

More information to come at: https://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/11th-geo-european-projects-workshop-2017

EU Green Week 2017

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 11:52:00 +0300

EU Green Week 2017 will take place from 29 May to 2 June with the theme of 'Green jobs for a greener future'. It will focus on how EU environmental policies are creating green jobs and contributing to economic, sustainable and socially responsible growth in the EU. It will also highlight the demand for new types of green skills in many professional sectors.

In addition to a high level conference in Brussels, the programme will also feature a series of partner events and actions taking place across Europe. As well as being invited to take part in person, stakeholders and the general public are encouraged to become 'virtually' involved by participating in a wide range of on-line and social media activities.

More information is available here: http://www.eugreenweek.eu/

BIOTALENT EU Conference: Tackling biodiversity challenges through innovative e-learning

Mon, 24 Apr 2017 17:12:00 +0300

BIOTALENT is a multilingual blended e-learning training programme to gain crucial skills and knowledge in biodiversity. Protecting life on earth in all its forms also involves introducing innovative ways to address pressing environmental issues of today. A strong investment in environmental education and a passion for science is therefore essential to this programme.

This one-day event, Taking place on 18 May 2017, in Brussels, will illustrate the uniqueness of the BIOTALENT project and programme in the way environmental education is brought to the course participant. The various expert speakers that are invited are all very passionate about innovation in education and the new ways in which scientific and environmental education can contribute to conserving biodiversity.

To register and find out more visit the official announcement.

ECOPOTENTIAL General meeting and General Assembly

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 16:09:00 +0300

The Second ECOPOTENTIAL General Scientific Meeting and General Assembly of Partners will take place in Heraklion, Crete, from May 16th to May 19th, kindly hosted by the ECOPOTENTIAL Partner FORTH.

The General Meeting is aimed at a comprehensive presentation and discussion about the research activities, highlighting the status of the project, the main results, the critical points and the future perspectives. The Scientific advisors will give lectures and will participate to the discussion. Main topics will be The Essential Variables, the Status of Remote Sensing data, in situ data and modelling, the Virtual Laboratory Platform, the research on changes over Protected Areas and future projections, as well as the issues related to cross scale interactions.

More information here.

2017 GEO Work Programme Symposium & 37th International Symposium of Remote Sensing (ISRSE)

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 16:54:00 +0200

The 2017 GEO Work Programme Symposium will be held back-to-back with the 37th International Symposium of Remote Sensing (ISRSE), in Tshwane, South Africa, the week of 8-13 May 2017.

The ISRSE thematic areas are aligned with GEO's areas of focus and Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs). Abstracts for the conference themes may be submitted by 22 November 2016 here:

https://confmanage.eventsair.com/isrse-37/presentation-portal

Please inform Douglas Cripe (dcripe@geosec.org) at the GEO Secretariat if you do submit an abstract.

In support of the Work Programme Symposium, there are eight GEO special sessions in which you are encouraged to submit an abstract:

04-1 GEOGLAM - Beyond crop monitoring, form data to actionable knowledge;

04-4 Towards a new philosophy for generating land cover;

10-2 The GFOI as a R&D promoter toward operational tropical forest monitoring systems;

11-2 Innovative infrastructure for delivering Earth Observations solutions;

11-4 Implementing GEOSS Data Sharing and Management Principles at the national level in Africa;

12-2 GEO in-situ observation networks;

13-2 GEOSS Common Infrastructure for Africa; and

13-5 Implementing the GEO user needs and gaps process: expectations, opportunities and challenges.

To contribute to these special sessions, please submit your abstract by 24 November 2016 using this link:

https://confmanage.eventsair.com/isrse-37/invited-session-presentation-portal

LifeWatch ERIC 1st General Assembly

Mon, 24 Apr 2017 15:08:00 +0300

The 1st General Assembly of LifeWatch ERIC will take place in Seville (Spain) on 8-9 May 2017.

More specific details about the working agenda and logistics to follow here.

GEO Data Providers Workshop

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 15:52:00 +0200

The GEO Data Providers workshop will take place from 20-21 April in Florence, Italy.

The First GEO Data Providers workshop was held as a side event during the GEO-XIII Plenary in St. Petersburg, to strengthen the dialogue with data providers in order to improve the discoverability, accessibility and usability of GEOSS resources by GEOSS users. Given the high level of interest and success of the first workshop, a more comprehensive event of two days will be hosted by the Italian, National Research Council (CNR) in Florence, Italy, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).

More information to follow.

Virtual Alpine Observatory Symposium 2017

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 10:14:00 +0200

From 28 to 30 March, 2017, the Virtual Alpine Observatory project (VAO) will host an international symposium to present its latest findings and encourage networking activities.The symposium will be held in Bolzano, Italy, and will include scientific presentations.

Alpine high altitude research stations contribute significantly to the monitoring, understanding, and forecasting of processes in the Earth system. Their exposed location creates almost ideal conditions for the investigation of many physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere, geosphere, cryo- and hydrospheres, and biosphere. The Virtual Alpine Observatory project supports the research activities of the alpine high altitude research stations by aggregating their measurements and performing joint research projects. VAO is contributing to the Alpine Convention. Access to other data and to high performance computing facilities creates rare research opportunities.

The symposium provides an ideal forum for obtaining up-to-date information about the latest developments, exchanging ideas, identifying future trends, and networking with the international high altitude research community.

More information on sessions & registration here: http://www.bayfor.org/vao-symposium-2017

EU BON Final Meeting 2017

Mon, 05 Dec 2016 14:57:00 +0200

The EU BON Final Meeting takes place from 14 - 16 March 2017.

14 March 2017

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS)
Museum of Natural Sciences
Vautier Street 13
1000 Brussels, Belgium

and

15 - 16 March 2017

Bouchout Castle
Botanic Garden Meise
Nieuwelaan 38
1860 Meise, Belgium

An overview of the programme can be found here.

To register for the Meeting please visit the registration page.

Please see also the Meeting's venues and accommodation pages.

Find out more on the official symposium webpage.

IPBES-5 Plenary

Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:30:00 +0300

The Fifth Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will take place from 6 to 10 March 2017, in Bonn, Germany

European Conference of Tropical Ecology

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 12:00:00 +0300

The "European Conference of Tropical Ecology" - the annual scientific meeting of the Society for Tropical Ecology (Gesellschaft für Tropenökologie, gtö) - will be organized in 2017 in Brussels, Belgium, by three Universities and three research-museum institutions. It will take place from Monday 6 to Friday 10 February 2017, on the campus "Etterbeek" from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a location easily reached from the city centre by public transport.

The overarching topic will be "(re)connecting tropical biodiversity in space and time". It highlights both the importance of integrating fundamental sciences inferring past processes (e.g. paleoecology, evolution, social history…) to understand current patterns of biodiversity, and the urgent need to reconnect patches of fragmented landscapes if we wish to conserve tropical biodiversity and ecological services of tropical ecosystems for future generations.

For more information and to register, please visit the official event's page: http://www.soctropecol-2017.eu/

Sharing Biodiversity data for re-use: Informatic tools and processes in Ecology

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 14:41:27 +0200

By lending access via the Internet to biodiversity data in open data infrastructures, biodiversity informatics worldwide allows anyone, anywhere to access and analyze data about all types of life on Earth. In applying common standards, research not previously possible is enabled, and better decisions to conserve and sustainably use the biological resources of the planet made possible.

In this symposium an overview of present and future opportunities will be given alongside recent research presentations and demonstrations of up-to-date tools for providing and acquiring information, handling data and presenting results.

The symposium is arranged as an Oikos Satellite Symposium but is open to anyone, i.e. also those not attending the Oikos conference can register for the symposium.

This symposium is organised by Swedish LifeWatch, GBIF Sweden and Department of Ecology at SLU and it will take place on February 6 2017, in Ecology Building, Sölvegatan 37, Lund, Sweden.

For more information, please visit the official event's page: http://www.slu.se/biodiversity-informatics

1st EKLIPSE Conference

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 11:54:00 +0300

The 1^st EKLIPSE conference will taka place from 6^th to 8^th December, 2016.

The conference will present the first outputs of EKLIPSE, identify further knowledge needs with respect to biodiversity in the context of nature-based solutions and to further develop our joint networking. During the event EKLIPSE will organise jointly with partners including BiodivERsA and EPBRS a series of workshops and conferences in Brussels.

TDWG 2016 Annual Conference

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 11:29:00 +0200

The TDWG 2016 Annual Conference will take place from 5 to 9 December 2016 in Santa Clara de San Carlos, COSTA RICA. The conference theme this year is: Standards Supporting Innovation in Biodiversity Research and Conservation.

Standards for the description and exchange of biodiversity information help promote research, support decision-making for conservation and planning, and provide a means of communicating observations by both professional and citizen scientists across taxa and political boundaries. TDWG standards are an integral foundation of the largest biodiversity information sources, but given the wealth and diversity of information collected for plants, animals, and fossils, the need remains to extend and refine the concepts required to achieve greater integration for the discovery of knowledge and its use in biodiversity conservation.

This year, TDWG is focusing its annual meeting not only on supporting research, decision making, and communication of biodiversity information, but also on how standards can support innovative research. Scientific innovations often "stand on the shoulders of giants," but they can also be disruptive -- causing major changes in the way that science works. To what extent do our standards promote innovation, and does the most innovative research show us where our standards need to be refined and extended? Current research both in Computer Science (e.g., deep learning, computer vision, ambient computing) and Biodiversity Sciences offers excellent opportunities for multidisciplinary innovative synergies among researchers, decision makers, students, and citizen scientists.

For more information and to register: http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/

13th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 11:18:00 +0200

The 13th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will take place from 4 to 17 December 2016 - Cancun, Mexico.

More information to follow here: https://www.cbd.int/doc/?meeting=cop-13

EU ABS Regulation Workshop - Leiden

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 15:46:00 +0300

The EU ABS Regulation workshop aims at providing the participants with knowledge about their obligations under the EU ABS Regulation and what they practically imply for their everyday work. In the first part of the workshop, the new legal framework will be explained, providing insight into the main provisions of the EU ABS Regulation. In the second part of the workshop, participants will have a chance to put the knowledge gained into practice through interactive case studies, based on real-life examples and realistic scenarios.

Registration page: http://www.euconf.eu/abs/en/registration/index.html

ABS Regulation Training Workshop - Warsaw

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 15:41:00 +0300

Registration page: http://www.euconf.eu/abs/en/registration/index.html

4th EU BON Roundtable: Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure

Mon, 26 Sep 2016 17:40:00 +0300

The 4th EU BON roundtable will take place on Thursday, 17 November 2016 at the premises of the Museum fuer Naturkunde in Berlin with the motto "Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure".

One of the key questions will be how to achieve sustainability for the many different products of EU BON, such as tools, software, models and infrastructure after the project ends. It should be discussed how a European Biodiversity Observation Network and its essential components could be sustained after the project will end in May 2017, by which institutions or networks and how the products can be used in the best way for European policy and research needs.

GEO XIII Plenary, St. Petersburg

Mon, 21 Mar 2016 15:02:00 +0200

The GEO XIII Plenary will take place on 9 & 10 Nov 2016 in St. Petersburg, Russia. More information to follow.

X. International Conference on Ecological Informatics 'Facing Global Change by Sharing Data and Models'

Wed, 23 Dec 2015 16:57:00 +0200

The 10th International Conference on Ecological Informatics 'Facing Global Change by Sharing Data and Models' wil take place on 24‐28 October 2016 in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Keynote speakers :

Duccio Rocchini, Trento, Italy 'Recent developments in biogeography'

Marie A. Roch, San Diego State University, USA 'Managing bioacoustics data'

Submissions of abstracts, special sessions, short courses on all aspects of ecological informatics are accepted until January 31st 2016 and should be sent to

Bozidar Dedus, Local Conference Chair bozidar.dedus@gmail.com

More information is available here: www.icei2016.org

23rd meeting of the GBIF Governing Board (GB23)

Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:40:00 +0300

The 23rd GBIF Governing Board meeting, committee meetings and the annual science symposium will take place at the Complexo Brasil 21, in Brasilia, Brazil from 24-27 October 2016.

More information here.

Sfécologie2016, the 2016 International Conference of the French Ecological Society

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 17:07:00 +0200

Sfécologie2016, the 2016 International Conference of the French Ecological Society, will take place in Marseille (France), from 24-28 October 2016. Local organizer is the 'Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie' (IMBE).

Following the former successful events (Ecologie 2010 in Montpellier and Joint Meeting British Ecological Society/Sfé 2014 in Lille), Sfécologie 2016 will promote and support exchanges around the latest developments in research and the most exciting challenges raised from the different disciplines of ecology, sharing scientific evidences, confronting experiences, developing collaborations around the Mediterranean Sea, across Europe, across the world.

The 4-days programme will be extensive, including 5 plenary speakers, thematic sessions and 14 symposia as well as inviting social events (conference outline here).

For more information visit the official event's page.

EU ABS Regulation Workshop - Stockholm

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 15:31:00 +0300

Registration page: http://www.euconf.eu/abs/en/registration/index.html

CETAF 40 General Meeting & 20th Anniversary Event

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 15:29:00 +0300

The 40th CETAF General Meeting will take place in Madrid, Spain, on the 18th-19th October 2016 at the Royal Botanic Garden, followed by the CETAF 20th Anniversary Event "Why natural history collections matter" to be held on the 20th October.

Meeting venue: Royal Botanic Garden at Madrid and goggle map access (coordinates: N40.4097702 - W3.690096). Please, be aware that the public entrance to the Garden is located in the opposite corner of the Garden premises, and it is closed before 10:00 am. Attendants could use it, but only during opening hours of the Garden.

ConnectinGEO Workshop on Gap Analysis and Prioritization

Thu, 23 Jun 2016 18:00:00 +0300

The ConnectinGEO Workshop on Gap Analysis and Prioritization will will take place on 10 & 11 October 2106 in Asutia to address key issues associated with the societal benefits of Earth observations and the exploitation of Earth observation for societal policy and decision making.

The Gap Analysis workshop will discuss the outcomes of the gap analysis and prioritization performed in the ConnectinGEO project. This gap analysis was guided by the information and knowledge needs resulting from humanity's "Road to Dignity" detailed in the Agenda 2030 and specified in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon by the United Nations. Both the monitoring and implementation of actions to achieve these goals require extensive support from Earth observation and science communities. Several directives and crosscuting issues in Europe provided further guidance for the gap analysis.

The workshop will provide a forum to review the methodology for gap analysis and prioritization, discuss the relevant gaps and priorities in the European Earth observation networks and develop a strategy to address those gaps that have a high priority assigned.

The objectives of the gap analysis and prioritization workshop are to:

Assess the ConnectinGEO methodology for gap analysis and prioritization;
Review the list of gaps identified and the prioritization achieved;
Produce a final list of gaps with high priority;
Discuss a strategy to address these gaps and provide recommendations for the European Network of Earth Observation Networks (ENEON) and the European Commission concerning high-priority gaps.

Basics of Taxonomy: describing, illustrating and communicating biodiversity, a DEST course

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 09:40:00 +0300

The 5th edition of the DEST course "Basics of Taxonomy" is co-organised with the Scandinavian Research School in Biosystematics (ForBio). The course will take place from 10 to 21 October 2016 at the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, Kristineberg.

Course topics covered: DELTA, digital drawing, scientific illustration, scientific writing and communication, Scratchpads.

For more infromation and to register, please go to: http://taxonomytraining.eu/content/basics-taxonomy-describing-illustrating-and-communicating-biodiversity-0

DEST Course: Philosophy of Biological Systematics

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 09:48:00 +0300

The 3rd edition of the DEST course "Philosophy of Biological Systematics" is co-organised with the Scandinavian Research School in Biosystematics (ForBio) and will take place from 10 to 14 October 2016.

Target Audience

MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers, professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics.

Criteria for selection will be scientific merit, motivation and usefulness of the training course for the applicant's career.

For more information and to register, please go to: http://taxonomytraining.eu/content/philosophy-biological-systematics-1

ConnectinGEO and ENEON Workshop Week

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 12:10:00 +0300

From 10 to 14 October 2016, ConnectinGEO and ENEON will host a joint 'Earth Observation Gap Analysis and Prioritization" workshop followed by an ENEON Workshop and Plenary. Both events will be held at IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria. The web announcement is available at http://www.gstss.org/2016_Laxenburg and there you can also access 1-page registration for both events. An overview of the schedule during the week is available at http://www.gstss.org/2016_Laxenburg/schedule.php. Extended deadline: 21st September.

The "Gap Analysis and Prioritization" workshop will take place on October 10-11, 2016.

Earth Observation gaps and prioritization actions' Workshop. Preliminary agenda

*   Session 1: Introduction to the ConnectinGEO Approach to Gap Analysis and Prioritization
*   Session 2: "Top-Down" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 1: Identification of a collection of observation requirements; Thread 2: Research programs aims and targets
*   Session 3: "Bottom-Up" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 1: Consultation process
*   Session 4: "Bottom-Up" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 2: GEOSS DAB analysis
*   Session 5: "Bottom-Up" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 3: Industry-Driven Challenges
*   Session 6: Assessment of the Gaps Identified so far and Steps Towards Prioritization

The ENEON Plenary will take place on October 12-13, 2016.

ENEON Workshop and Plenary. Preliminary agenda

*   Session 1: ENEON Developments: Networks, Committees, Working Groups, Ambassadors, Achievements
*   Session 2: ENEON in Support of European Policy Making and Implementation
*   Session 3: ENEON in Support of Sustainable Development Goals Monitoring and Implementation
*   Session 4: Addressing Gaps in European Earth Observation Infrastructure, Services, and Knowledge
*   Session 5: ENEON: European Contribution to the GEO Work Programme
*   Session 6: ENEON Business

ILTER Open Science Meeting (OSM)

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 17:36:00 +0200

The International LTER Network is pleased to announce its first global Open Science Meeting to be held from 9-13 October 2016 in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Registration will be open to all experts involved in LTER, interested researchers and stakeholders. Topical research themes will be addressed in plenary, break-away sessions and workshops. Experience from site-based to global LTER in one conference at a world-class biodiversity destination, and take advantage of ample opportunities for networking and coordination across ecosystems. ILTER will also use the opportunity to engage a range of powerful international partners of LTER in global change research and policy. Various field trips to South African LTER sites will be organized. Remember to put the dates on your calendar.

The OSM themes are:

Nitrogen impacts on ecosystems structures and functioning.
Carbon and water cycles under climate change.
Towards sustainable usage of ecosystem services (local, regional & global).
Drivers of biodiversity across scales.
Data integration and interoperability enabling global scale ecosystem research and linking with environmental monitoring.
Linking local, regional and global Earth system observations and models.

In addition, there will be a call for contribution to emerging issues and challenges for ecosystem research.

In addition there will be half a day dedicated to relations with major relevant global observation networks and infrastructures. 2-day fieldtrips to South African ecosystem research sites will be offered to a limited number of participants before the conference.

The OSM specifically addresses

LTER researchers and scientific site coordinators (PIs).
LTER stakeholders and partners
The participation of early career scholars and postgraduate researchers is encouraged.

More information here.

ICRI 2016 (International Conference on Research Infrastructures)

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 11:01:00 +0200

The next International Conference on Research Infrastructures will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 3 to 5 October 2016, hosted by the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) in collaboration with the European Commission. It will be the 3rd Conference on Research Infrastructures and the event will have an international dimension. The conference aims at:

highlighting the essential role of global research infrastructures in addressing grand challenges and as hubs for innovation;
reflecting on needs, development and sustainability of global/regional research infrastructures;
discussing the possibility to move towards an international roadmap.

Several hundreds of participants from more than 50 countries are expected to take part to this event. Speakers representing high-level stakeholders from across the globe, as well as highly profiled key political Institutions, including the UN, European Commission, African Union, OECD and others, will intervene in the debate.

More information to follow.

2016 XXV International Congress of Entomology (ICE)

Tue, 28 Jun 2016 18:41:00 +0300

ESA is honored to host ICE 2016, the XXV International Congress of Entomology, under the theme Entomology without Borders. The event is expected to bring together the largest delegation of scientists and experts in the history of the discipline, who will meet between 25-30 Sep 2016, in exciting, easily-accessible, and affordable Orlando, Florida, USA.

Make important connections with entomologists and scientists from around the world.
Present to this global audience and compete in global competitions.
Participate in forums and discussions covering every aspect of the discipline.
Build global networks and collaborative research with others in your field of interest.
Showcase your products and services to an important global audience.

The Congress will allow scientists and students to interact with the world’s leading experts in many specialties to exchange ideas and build on their research. Symposia will highlight the most recent advances in a wide diversity of entomological subjects around the global theme.

European Ecosystem Services 2016 Conference

Fri, 03 Jun 2016 09:11:20 +0300

The European Ecosystem Services 2016 conference will take place from 19 to 23 September 2016 in Antwerp, Belgium. The theme 'Helping nature to help us' focuses on the important role that healthy ecosystems play in supporting human well-being and the protection of nature.

This conference will be the biggest European event in 2016 that links science, policy and practice on ecosystem services and natural capital. It will have a strong focus on practice and implementation.

The conference programme offers an attractive mix of:

keynote presentations from policy, practice and science;
a networking day where businesses, practitioners, policymakers and researchers meet and showcase their work;
interactive sessions to demonstrate working examples of ecosystem services and natural capital;
field excursions to see ecosystem services in action; and
scientific sessions.

Key dates:

Registration opens on 2 May 2016.

Call for abstracts - 1 Apr - 15 May 2016.

To register and find out more about teh event, please visit the official website.

Science, Business and Environment: a UNEP-GRID conference

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 18:10:00 +0300

As a part of the celebrations of a 25th Anniversary, GRID-Warsaw is holding an international conference Science, Business and Environment. The conference will take place on 15 Sep 206 and is organized in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The main objective is to present the state, changes and threats (hot issues) for the pan-European continent, identified in the latest UNEP report, released as part of the Global Environment Outlook series. The "GEO-6 Assessment for the pan-European region" report was published in June 2016, and first time presented at a conference of Environment Ministers on June 8, 2016 in Batumi. The conference in Warsaw will be the first event during which the report will be presented to the broader community, as well as become the subject of discussion of experts representing different backgrounds and different countries.

EU BON is partner of the conference - the conference is also connected to relevant issues of EU BON, namely collecting, sharing, and utilizing data and geoinformation tools for environmental investigations and biodiversity assessments. These topics will fill the most of a special panel session dedicated to biodiversity and be also present at the plenary opening session Environmental changes in the pan-European region - current trends and challenges. Using environmental data in science, business and administration.

For further information about the event: agenda, invited panelists, descriptions of sessions, registration form etc. please visit www.gridw.pl/geo6.

14th FishBase Annual Symposium, "FishBase and SeaLifeBase: a diversity of uses for biodiversity studies"

Wed, 07 Sep 2016 09:10:37 +0300

Theme: FishBase and SeaLifeBase: a diversity of uses for biodiversity studies

Date:      September 9, 2016

Venue:   Amphitheatre Rouelle, Museum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN), Paris

See tentative program/agenda below..

Open to all interested. If you wish to attend this event, contact:

Patrice Pruvost
Chargé de conservation d'ichtyologie
UMR Borea-7208
Département milieux et peuplements aquatiques
Museum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN)
CP26 - 43 rue cuvier
tel : 33 1 40 79 37 60
fax : 33 1 40 79 37 71
75005 Paris
E-mail: pruvost@mnhn.fr

GfOe Annual Meeting

Wed, 23 Dec 2015 09:51:00 +0200

In 2016, the University of Marburg hosts the 46th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The meeting (www.gfoe-2016.de) will take place from September 5 to 9, 2016 in Marburg, Germany.

Call for sessions:

The organizing committee encourages all members of the GfÖ and all scientists interested in ecological research to organize and chair further sessions for presentations or workshops.

Proposals for sessions will be accepted from 15 December to 15 February 2016. We welcome proposals addressing the guiding theme of the meeting as well as all other topics relevant to ecologists.

Topics:

1. Functional and evolutionary ecology

2. Multitrophic interactions

3. Ecosystem and global change

4 Macroecology and biogeography

5. Ecological services and social ecology

6. Conservation

If you would like to propose and chair a session, please submit your proposal to www.gfoe-2016.de.

IUCN World Conservation Congress

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:47:00 +0200

Held once every four years, the IUCN World Conservation Congress brings together several thousand leaders and decision-makers from government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business, and academia, with the goal of conserving the environment and harnessing the solutions nature offers to global challenges. The next Congress will take place 1-10 September in the Hawaiʻi Convention Center, in the Hawaiian capital, Honolulu. It is being hosted by the State of Hawaiʻi with the support of the Department of State of the USA.

The Congress aims to improve how we manage our natural environment for human, social and economic development, but this cannot be achieved by conservationists alone. The IUCN Congress is the place to put aside differences and work together to create good environmental governance, engaging all parts of society to share both the responsibilities and the benefits of conservation.

The Congress is the place where IUCN’s more than 1,300 Member organisations exercise their rights, influence the global conservation agenda and guide IUCN’s work plan for the four years to follow.

Find out more here: http://www.iucnworldconservationcongress.org/

EcoSummit 2016 Ecological Sustainability: Engineering Change

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:43:00 +0200

The 5th International EcoSummit Congress, EcoSummit 2016 - Ecological Sustainability: Engineering Change, will take place at The Corum Convention Centre, Montpellier from 29 August – 1 September 2016.

This conference series was founded in 1996 in Copenhagen, as a forum to meet the demands of scientists working in several new ecological disciplines, and who required a better understanding of the concepts and methods for a holistic use of ecology in environmental management. Since 1996, EcoSummit has been taken around the world (Canada and China), with EcoSummit 2012 hosting 1600 participants from 75 countries in Columbus, Ohio, USA.

EcoSummit 2016 will centre on the ecology of terrestrial ecosystems and all habitats that are integrated within those ecosystems, including river networks, wetlands and coastlines.

More information: http://www.ecosummit2016.org/

ScenNet Biodiversity and Ecosystem Scenarios Network Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Support of Decision-Making

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 11:35:00 +0300

The ScenNet Biodiversity and Ecosystem Scenarios Network Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Support of Decision-Making conference will take place on 23 - 26 August 2016 at CORUM, Montpellier, France.

The conference covers scenarios and modelling applications in marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems, across all relevant disciplines of natural and social sciences. It is open to scientists and experts working in the field, policy makers and practioners. The conference focuses on: (i) Exploring recent advances in modelling human impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, (ii) Addressing the use of scenarios and models for decision support, (iii) Mobilising observations of biodiversity and ecosystem services for model development and testing, (iv) Capacity building for developing scenarios and models and for their use in decision making, (v) Horizon scanning and addressing gaps in knowledge.

More information available on the conference website.

33rd (International Society of Limnology) SIL conference: Science for sustainable freshwater use

Mon, 25 Jan 2016 17:48:00 +0200

The 33rd (International Society of Limnology) SIL conference "Science for sustainable freshwater use" will be held from 31 July until 5 August 2016 in torino, Italy.

Our planet is under pressure due to increased demand for freshwater. The availability and suitability of water resources are threatened by human influences, directly, through globally unbalancing the slow and fast water cycles and impairing water quality, and indirectly through the adverse effects of climate change. Many freshwater ecosystems are deteriorating in quantity and quality. As a result, an increasing number of people are chronically short of water.

In this context, limnology must represent the answer to the planetary water crisis as we need more science and more scientists to urgently face a sustainable and effective freshwater recovery. This need can be satisfied only improving our knowledge in Limnological Sciences and the people awareness of what science can do for a more sustainable use of freshwater ecosystems.

More information available here: http://www.sil2016.it/

EuroScience Open Forum 2016

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:38:00 +0200

The EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) is a biennial, pan-European, general science conference dedicated to scientific research and innovation. Each conference aims to deliver stimulating content and lively debate around the latest advancements and discoveries in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. Now in its seventh iteration, ESOF attracts thousands of delegates to the host city during the week of the conference, which, in 2016, will be held between 23 and 27 July in Manchester.

ESOF brings together over 4,500 leading thinkers, innovators, policy makers, journalists and educators from more than 90 countries, to discuss current and future breakthroughs in contemporary science.

ESOF is one of the best opportunities for everyone from leading scientists, early careers researchers, business people, policy makers, science and technology communicators to the general public to come together to find out more about how science is helping us advance today.

Registration and more information: http://www.esof.eu/about/introduction-to-esof.html

2016 GEO BON Open Science Conference & All Hands Meeting

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 09:53:00 +0300

The 2016 GEO BON Open Science Conference: "Biodiversity and ecosystem Services Monitoring for the 2020 Targets and beyond. Building on observations for user needs" and the GEO BON ALL-Hands-Meeting will take place from 4 to 9 July 2016 in Leipzig, Germany. Registration for the event is now open!

The GEO BON Open Science Conference & All Hands Meeting will be a major event to bring together all of those interested in developing biodiversity monitoring programs, biodiversity observations research, and sound biodiversity management. The first 2½ days will be organized as an Open Science Conference, with oral and poster presentations in parallel sessions.

There will be also some keynotes from renown speakers. This conference is an opportunity to open GEO BON to anyone interested in joining our community. The second 2½ will be the All Hands Meeting and organized as parallel workshops on specific topics. These workshops may have products (e.g. a guide to monitor an EBV) and/or may lay out a work plan for a working group for 2016-2019. The All Hands Meeting is open to everybody active or wanting to be active in GEO BON.

Deadline abstract submission: 1 April 2016

For more information and to register, please see the official event's page.

Ecopotenial General Assembly

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 18:17:00 +0200

The Ecopotenial General Assembly will take place between from 27 to 30 June 2016 in the Netherlands (exact location to be determined).

More information to follow on the ecopotential website: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/

Biodiversity research for and by citizens in Eastern Europe: tools, information services and public engagement

Wed, 01 Jun 2016 17:18:00 +0300

Citizens in democratic society are no longer just passive bystanders when science is in focus. They show interest in results, ask for consultation and contribute with data. For many fields of research citizen science data are valuable additional information.

The FP7 project Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network - EU BON (http://eubon.eu/) now organizes a dedicated Citizen Science Workshop to explore the opportunities and tools for citizens in Eastern Europe to engage in biodiversity research. The workshop will take place on 27-28 June 2016 at the University of Tartu Natural History Museum, Estonia.

Engaging citizens is a challenge both for society and for researchers. There are new tools and methods which allow to manage citizen science projects, collect data and provide feedback to citizen scientists. The workshop will present EU BON results of citizen science mobilizing efforts for biodiversity research, provide training for citizen science tools and showcase some examples of Estonian projects and European initiatives. Workshop will also make an effort to prioritize recommendations and next steps for citizen science integration into biodiversity research.

To view the programme, learn more and subscribe, please visit the event's webpage here: http://eubon.cybertaxonomy.africamuseum.be/CS%20workshop

2nd International GGBN Conference on Biodiversity Biobanking

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 18:45:00 +0200

The Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin are glad to welcome you to the 2016 GGBN conference, held from June 21 through June 24, 2016, in Berlin, Germany.

The Global Genome Biodiversity Network is a collaborative effort to cryo-preserve and provide access to genomic samples from across the Tree of Life.
Sessions and Workshops are planned on

Concerted collecting and sampling strategies to preserve the Tree of Life
Sampling the lost world in Natural History collections
Nagoya Protocol: consequences and solutions
Knowledge exchange: natural history meets applied biobanking
Implementing GGBN standards and best practice

More information here.

31st Annual SPNHC Meeting: "Green Museum – How to practice what we preach?"

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 18:52:00 +0200

The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin are organizing the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) to be held from June 20 through 25, 2016, in Berlin, Germany.

Under the heading "Green Museum – How to practice what we preach?" this meeting of the society evaluates green thinking in collections, museums and botanical gardens. In a world of climate change and ever decreasing biodiversity, sustainability should be the criterion that ideally determines all planning and decisions, ranging from field work to construction projects, from ethical aspects to cost-benefit analyses.

In practice this often is compromised by constraints beyond the control of the institution, be it monetary, legal or other. The conference will offer a forum to discuss possible ways of reconciling the seemingly opposing requirements.

More information here.

2016 Annual LTER-Europe & eLTER project meetings

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:34:00 +0200

The Annual meetings of the LTER-Europe network and the eLTER H2020 project will take place between 13 and 17 June, 2016 in Latvia.

The annual LTER-Europe meeting will take place during this week, along with the annual eLTER H2020 project meeting. The current outline schedule (subject to change) is:

Monday 13 June, 18:00 - 22:00: Welcome party
Tuesday 14 June, 09:00 - 17:00: LTER-Europe meeting
Wednesday 15 June, 09:00 - 18:00: eLTER H2020 project meeting
Thursday 16 June, 09:00 - 18:00: eLTER H2020 project meeting
Friday 17 June, 09:00 - 12:00: eLTER Core Team meeting

For updated information go to: http://www.lter-europe.net/events/lter-europe-2016

Citizen observatories for water management conference

Mon, 25 Jan 2016 17:41:00 +0200

From 7 to 9 June 2016 the city of Venice will host an International Conference titled: "Citizen Observatories for Water Management". The Conference will focus on the potential of Citizen Science in the European water innovation landscape, and in particular in the fields of flood risk management, environmental monitoring and meeting the challenges of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

The Conference will be an opportunity for actors in the field of science and innovation to exchange experiences on the development, implementation and use of new technologies to bring water-related issues closer to citizens.

Introduction

Citizen observatories are emerging as a virtual and physical place where citizens and decision makers cooperate to gather and share information to promote innovative and shared solutions. Strategic decisions and policies that impact society and the environment require intensive data collection and interpretation. Such information provides an important basis for long term planning as well as short term response (e.g. to flooding, drought, pollution events, cyanobacterial blooms).

The COWM 2016 conference will explore the role and opportunities for active citizen participation in environmental monitoring and policy making. The event will provide opportunities to engage with researchers, policy makers and practitioners actively involved in improving our understanding of citizen science initiatives. Participants will discuss the growing potential of Citizens’ Observatories in empowering the society and improving the resilience at the community scale.

The meeting will bring together social scientists, surveyors, engineers, scientists, and other professionals from many countries involved in research and development activities in a wide range of technical and management topics related to citizen observatories and their impacts on society and how to maximize the benefit of data emerging from citizen observatories.

More information available here: http://www.conwater2016.eu/index.php/en/

2016 IndexMed Seminar

Mon, 09 May 2016 11:58:00 +0300

The 2016 IndexMed Seminar will be held from 6 to 8 June 2016, in Marseille, France.

Following the successful workshops (2014 and 2015), this 3rd seminar will highlight the contribution of recent developments in data-mining using graphs approach for environmental research questions and new hypotheses. It will promote exchanges between participants, the acquisition of practical methods and will explore new ways to organize data.

The aims, after sharing scientific evidences and confronting experiences, are to develop collaborations using/based on graph approaches and new researches around the Mediterranean Sea and across Europe, and to respond to a European H2020 Call next year. The 3-days program (6 to 8 June 2016) will be extensive, including 3 plenary sessions with keynote speakers (international level), social events, a posters session and a 2-days workshop (about 20 places), during which participants will build their first data graphs with their own datasets and learn how to generate metadata and to write data papers.

The 2016 IndexMed Seminar welcomes abstracts for original oral and poster contributions until 15th May 2016. The online submission process will be opened soon (1st April) on http://indexmed2016.sciencesconf.org.

Registration is free and open to any researcher. PhD and Master students are welcome.

Follow the latest news and register for the event here.

10th GEO European Projects Workshop 2016

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 10:42:00 +0300

Representatives from science, business and public administration are invited to join the 2016 GEO Workshop for European projects on earth observation from 31 May to 2 June in Berlin.

2016 marks a turning point for the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) with the launch of the new Stategic Plan implementing the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS). Now in its 10th edition, the GEO European Projects Workshop 2016 will present and discuss European initiatives contributing to GEOSS.

The conference is jointly organised by the European Commission, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany, and the Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science.

For further information on the event (programme, registration, practical information) and most recent updates, please regularly check: https://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/geo-european-projects-workshop-2016

EU Green Week

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:31:00 +0200

Green Week 2016 will take place from 30 May to 3 June. Focusing on the theme "Investing for a greener future", it hopes to contribute to answering a broader question of how to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe. Elements such as, for example, innovation for greener cities, sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems or the role of innovative instruments in mobilising adequate financing and 'blue growth' would naturally fit into the programme.

More infromation: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/greenweek/index_en.html

First International ECSA Conference

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 18:27:00 +0200

The European Citizen Science Association organizes the First International ECSA Conference at the Kulturbrauerei in Berlin, Germany to take place from 19 to 21 May 2016.

The event will involve three days of talks, interactive sessions and panels to discuss and network with Citizen Scientist enthusiasts, practitioners, academic researchers, policy makers, science funders, non-governmental organisations, interested citizens and other stakeholders. The conference focuses on demonstrating and further exploring the innovation potential of Citizen Science for science, society and policy and its role within open science and innovation.

Attached below please find our Save-the-date Announcement in English and German. Please feel free to distribute it further or to print it for your institution's bill-board. Conference language will be English.

Subscribe now on the conference website and you will be sure to get all conference information: http://www.ecsa2016

Asean-EU STI days 2016

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:21:00 +0200

The ASEAN-EU STI Days 2016 will be organised in Hanoi, Vietnam, from 10-12 May, 2016. This year’s edition of the event will focus on presenting academic/industry collaborations in and between ASEAN and the EU in the context of common key societal challenges for both regions.

The ASEAN-EU Science, Technology and Innovation Days are a forum style event, initiated by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme funded SEA-EU-NET II project.

For more information and to register, please go to: http://www.stidays.net

2nd EARSeL SIG LU/LC and NASA LCLUC joint Workshop: Advancing horizons for land cover services entering the big data era

Mon, 16 Nov 2015 15:38:00 +0200

Following the successful 1st joint Workshop with more than 150 participants from 4 continents in Berlin, 2014, the EARSeL Special Interest Group on Land Use and Land Cover (SIG LU/LC) and NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program organize their 2nd joint workshop.

The Workshop will be conceptually linked with and support the objectives of the following ESA Living Planet Symposium 2016 on 9–13 May 2016, as a brainstorming preparation.

Hosting distinguished keynote speakers and poster presentations, the Workshop will discuss the latest advancements and upcoming challenges in Land Cover and Land Use Monitoring for the Environment, Food security, Energy, Health and Security. More information in the conference brochure.

Registration: web.natur.cuni.cz/gis/lucc/

Living Planet Symposium 2016

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 17:26:00 +0300

The 2016 European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium follows the previous successful symposia held in Edinburgh (2013), Bergen (2010), Montreux (2007) and Salzburg (2004).

The event will be held in Prague, Czech Republic from 9-13 May 2016 and is organised with the support of the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.

A first announcement has been released, with a deadline for abstract submission on 16 October 2015. All received abstracts will be reviewed by a Scientific Committee, notification of acceptance will be provided in early February 2016. Registration to attend the event (free of charge) will be opened in February 2016, after the publication of the preliminary programme.

Full papers for accepted contributions shall be provided at the event and will be published as ESA Special Publication. An Exhibition will be running from 9 to 12 May 2016.

CETAF 39 (General Meeting) in Budapest

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:18:00 +0200

CETAF39 will be hosted by the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest on the 3-4 May 2016.

More information coming soon here: http://cetaf.org/cetaf-39-general-meeting-budapest

GEO Work Programme Symposium

Fri, 12 Feb 2016 09:51:00 +0200

The GEO Work Programme Symposium will take place from 2 to 4 May 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland. The objective of this first Work Programme Symposium is to actively engage the GEO Community in the implementation of the new GEO Strategic Plan 2016-2015: Implementing GEOSS (GEO 2016-2025 SP).

The Symposium will:

Reflect on the GEO 2016-2025 SP, on its targets, and on activities that GEO should put in place;
Ensure a common understanding of the new arrangements defined by the Strategic Plan (Programme Board, Monitoring and Evaluation, Implementation Mechanisms, role of the Secretariat, etc.);
Ensure a common understanding of how GEO works, what are the links among different activities (GEOSS development and operations, users’ needs, knowledge base development, etc.) and how the Community should plan its involvement;
Strengthen the participation of users in GEO activities;
Strengthen the involvement of current stakeholders and involve new ones identified in the GEO 2016-2025 SP;
Review the approach for GEOSS development (requirements, functional performances, architecture) and provide clear inputs for its further implementation;
Discuss the content of the GEO Work Programme 2017-2019 and provide clear inputs (technical and programmatic) for its further development;
Provide an opportunity to explore and consolidate GEO activities at the Global and/or Regional level;
Explore opportunities with the private sector;
Foster regional (caucus) interactions and discuss opportunities to strengthen GEO action at the regional level; and
Explore opportunities for new global/regional initiatives.

For more information about GEO meetings, click here.

Space - the final frontier for biodiversity monitoring

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 16:27:00 +0300

The ZSL Institute of Zoology is organizing a one day symposim "Space - the final frontier for biodiversity monitoring?" to take place on 29 April 2016. The event will bring together leading experts in biodiversity monitoring and satellite remote sensing to discuss ways to better capitalise on this technology to monitor biological diversity globally.

For more information on participation and logistics, please visit the official event 's page.

EUBON Workshop Milestone 144: Alpha version of data mobilization systems online

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 12:04:47 +0200

Workshop on beta versions of data mobilization systems at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm.

Registration link: http://goo.gl/forms/pCvjglXpcN

Biodiversity Without Boundaries 2016

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:06:00 +0200

Biodiversity without Boundaries (BWB) 2016 takes place on 18-22 April in the biodiversity-rich, abundant, and beautiful Puerto Rico.

In collaboration with our Puerto Rico Network Partners - the Puerto Rico Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DRNA) and the leading environmental and educational nonprofit Para la Naturaleza - the NatureServe Network’s annual conference will convene hundreds of the world’s leading conservationists for a week of plenaries, symposiums, workshops, panels, presentations, and field sessions.

To register and for more information, please visit the official event's page.

European Geosciences Union, General assembly 2016

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 18:22:00 +0200

European Geosciences Union, General assembly: Interdisciplinary Approaches in Climatic Change Research and Assessment will take place in Vienna from 17 to 22 April 2016.

Adequate response to the challenges associated with climate change requires new formats of scientific research and assessment. In the past, linear approaches, starting from the recognition of climate change, through the analysis of observed or expected impacts and ending with policy recommendations, have been the mainstream. It is now widely recognised that these approaches mostly fail to reach their objectives since they do not account for feedbacks between the physical environment and societal action, nor for the feedbacks in the various subsystems. The objective of this session is to review and discuss the problem of climatic change in all its dimensions, with a special focus on interdisciplinary approaches. Climate change science concerns a number of disciplines, such as physics, biology, economics, social sciences etc. It is essential that new forms for interact between disciplines are found in order to produce innovative results.

We do not expect to cover all the aspects of the climate change science but we hope that as well researchers in physical and natural sciences than researchers in social sciences will find interest to participate at the session to present and discuss a few exciting issues within one of several of these scopes (and more):

- The link between global climate scenarios and the socio-economic developments

- Scenarios for impact studies: from global to local

- Climate services: the relation between scientists and stakeholders

- Ecosystem services: outputs from ecosystems, challenges and responses

- Climate – societal interactions in the last millennia: can we learn from past experience?

- Socio-ecosystems, towards a comprehensive approach to sustainability Science

- The climate change policies to mitigate climatic change

- Climatic change and biodiversity

- How to couple physical, ecological and socio-economic models

- Peoples' perception of risk, how to improve communication

- Sea level change and the problems of low lying areas.

Information: http://egu2016.eu/information/general_information.html

The call for abstracts for the EGU 2016 General Assembly is now open: make sure to submit your abstract by 13 January 2016, 13:00 CET. If you would like to apply for funding from the EGU to attend, please submit your abstract within the next few days, by 1 December. This month the EGU has also open a call for proposals for EGU 2016 co-sponsored meetings and has announced a new grant scheme for EGU members interested in developing an outreach and public engagement project.

54th International Conference of the Association of German Taxidermists

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 09:59:00 +0200

The 54^th International Conference of the Association of German Taxidermists, organised by the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, wiill take place from 5 - 9 April 2016, in Berlin, Germany.

More information: http://www.praeparation.de/aktuelles/54_internationale_arbeitstagung

EU BON biodiversity data sharing and data publishing workshop

Tue, 09 Feb 2016 14:05:00 +0200

EU BON is organising a "Biodiversity data sharing and data publishing workshop" to take place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 22-23 March 2016. The event is directed to biologists and other life scientists from Eastern Europe who are actively involved in monitoring and managing biodiversity data. A core topic of this training will be the publishing of biodiversity data, in particular species occurrences, sample-based and citizen science data. The training will include a practical session during which participants will be assisted by experienced trainers from the EU BON project.

Addressing global problems, such as biodiversity loss and impacts of climate change requires open access to data. This was concluded by world leaders at Johannesburg Summit in 2002 when they established the Group for Earth Observations (GEO). EU BON (Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network) seeks to enhance biodiversity data availability and integration, and is the European contribution to the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network.

All biodiversity databases need to be integrated in GEO. Therefore, EU BON undertakes capacity building of biodiversity communities (e.g. researchers, citizen scientists, non-governmental organisations) that are involved in collecting and disseminating biodiversity information, including monitoring initiatives.

The sessions on data sharing will cover introductory overview of key concepts, demonstration and practical exercise using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT). The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is the world's largest initiative for enabling free access to biodiversity data via internet.

Special attention will be paid to data paper publishing led by specialists from Pensoft Publishers - a company well known among biodiversity scientists worldwide for technologically cutting-edge open access journals, such as: Research Ideas and Outcomes, ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, Nature Conservation, and a strong advocate of data publishing. Registration of data in GEO registry system will be also addressed during the workshop.

The following topics will be covered (detailed program will follow):

The data publishing landscape, gaps and mobilization efforts
Demonstration and practical session on data publishing using the GBIF IPT: step-by-step demo will show in detail (and in practice) how to publish a dataset using IPT.
Data papers: types, structure, opportunities
Citizen Science gateway and demo of PlutoF Citizen Science module
GoldenGate Imagine tool and copyright issues
Registration of data in the GEO Registry System

To register and for more information, click here.

FishBase and Fish Taxonomy Training Session 2016

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 12:54:39 +0200

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren (Belgium), member of the FishBase Consortium and responsible for the information on the fresh- and brackish water fishes of Africa in the FishBase database, is organizing the 'FishBase and Fish Taxonomy Training Session 2016'. This course has been offered annually since 2005 and held regularly in the RMCA located at Leuvensesteenweg 13, B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium. Through an agreement with the Belgian Development Cooperation and as part of the FishBase program, the RMCA has five (5) grants available for this year's 3-month training program (from 07 March up to 27 May 2016) in the use of FishBase and the taxonomy of African fishes. To apply for traineeship and for more information, see: http://fishbase.africamuseum.be or www.fishbaseforafrica.org.

The training course will have three (3) subsets:

A detailed explanation of FishBase in all its aspects;
A training in the taxonomy of African fishes;
A case study based on data from FishBase or on taxa for which taxonomic problems have been encountered.

*For 2016, this course will be given in French only.

Questions? Contact Dimitri Geelhand de Merxem (dimitri.geelhand@africamuseum.be).

Global Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring: Science, Data and Infrastructure Needs for IPBES and Beyond

Fri, 29 Jan 2016 10:46:00 +0200

"Global Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring: Science, Data and Infrastructure Needs for IPBES and Beyond" is a joint symposium of the Future Earth Clusters ‘Global Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring, Prediction and Reporting’ and "Support for IPBES", which will take place from 6 to 10 March 2016 in Monte Verita, Ascona, Switzerland.

The symposium follows up on the initial meeting on "Global Biodiversity Monitoring" at Yale University in May 2015. The 2016 event will in particular bring biodiversity and global change scientists from Europe, Africa, and Asia to this discussion and add as additional focus the scientific needs for IPBES, in particular on indicators and scenarios. Key goals of the conference are to link the main research groups active in this area, improve data sharing, develop collaborative analyses, realize potential synergies and advance international cooperation. Work efforts to date have been organized into several working groups and the meeting will provide opportunity for these groups to advance or complete their work and for new initiatives to form. Future Earth is entering the next formative stage and the symposium is a forum to advance the role of biodiversity within Future Earth as well as develop or engage in new research and funding opportunities under its umbrella.

Please see here for the draft program and logistical information, and http://biodiversitymonitoring.org for more background about the Future Earth Biodiversity Monitoring cluster.

Further information on the event is available in the official announcement here.

GLOBIS-B workshop 1

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 13:05:20 +0200

Workshop 1 and 2 have the aim to identify the options and problems associated with the general challenges of provisioning the research infrastructures to deliver capabilities for supporting the generation and calculation of EBVs. The two workshops (Figure 1) will focus on the EBV class ‘Species populations’ (EBVs ‘Species distribution’ and ‘Population abundance’) for which the data, models and understanding are presently much better developed than for other EBV classes.

Workshop 1 will have integrated as well as parallel sessions with ecologists and biodiversity scientists (with special expertise in species distributions and abundance and its monitoring), biodiversity informaticians and infrastructure operators, and legal interoperability experts.

http://www.globis-b.eu/33/workshop_1.html

IPBES Fourth Plenary

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:45:00 +0300

The fourth session of the IPBES Plenary is now set to be held from 22 to 28 February 2016 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

So far only a provisional agenda for the fourth session of the Plenary is available.

The deadline for registration has been set for 15 September 2015.

More information to follow.

Global Forest Observations Initiative Plenary and Open Forum

Mon, 25 Jan 2016 18:23:00 +0200

The Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI) is organising the GFOI Plenary and Open Forum to be hosted by the European Space Agency in Frascati, Italy from 22 February 2016 – 26 February 2016.

Building on the success of the Paris Conference of the Parties, this Forum provides an excellent opportunity to hear from international experts, implementation agencies and other developing countries and discuss the activities, ambitions and outcomes that have been made possible by the GFOI.

The GFOI provides guidance and supports capacity development activities for implementing forest Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) systems. This ensures such systems comply with United Nations rules and facilitates potential participation in REDD+. A key role of the initiative is to foster the supply and use of satellite observations to facilitate national reporting on greenhouse gas emissions.

The GFOI holds an annual Plenary that brings together the international experts that are involved in the GFOI. This year, the GFOI is integrating an Open Forum which will involve participation of a broad range of developing countries that are designing MRV systems. This session will:

showcase and provide a hands on experience of the guidance material available through the GFOI and the new online portal;
provide an opportunity for countries to present on the development and implementation of MRV systems and provide guidance and feedback to GFOI partners, users, producers and distributors

All countries and institutions that have an interest in the application of satellite data in the development of national forest monitoring systems that are compliant with IPCC-guidelines and UNFCCC reporting, will have an interest in attending.

The week will also feature meetings of the individual GFOI Components: Space Data; Methods and Guidance; Research and Development; and Capacity Building. The Components will come together in plenary sessions to share news, showcase new tools and systems and discuss the cooperative activities of the GFOI.

Registration is open no later than Monday 1 February 2016, via the link: http://www.gfoi.org/2016-gfoi-plenary-and-open-forum/

International Workshop Decision Models and Population Management

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 09:57:00 +0200

The "International Workshop Decision Models and Population Management" will take place from 2 to 4 February, 2014 in Paris, France. The three days international and interdisciplinary workshop is devoted to the decision making, in particular in presence of multiple actors with or without interaction. These problems occur in a natural way in management of populations, where the dynamics are strongly related to the decisions. The workshop aims to bring together Mathematicians, Computer Scientists and Ecologists around the problem of populations management. The population dynamics, viability theory and game theory form an umbrella of helpful mathematical tools in this context. On the other hand, the computer sciences bring the online and algorithmic mechanism design.

The workshop is motivated by concrete problems proposed by ecologists and aims to create a synergy between scientists from different backgrounds to address the challenging modelling of decision making in the context of ecological paradigms.

Invited Speakers
- Michel BENAIM (Université de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Swtizerland)
- Renato CASAGRANDI (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
- Denis COUVET (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France)
- Sylvain DUCTOR (LIP6, UPMC, Paris, France)
- Marino GATTO (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria-Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
- Ihab HAIDAR (Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France)
- Sophie MARTIN (UR LISC - IRSTEA)
- Nicolas MAUDET (LIP6, UPMC, Paris, France)
- Paco MELIÀ (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
- Jean-Baptiste MIHOUB (UPMC-Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France)
- Vianney PERCHET (Université Denis Diderot, Paris, France)
- Karl SIGMUND (University of Vienna, Wien, Austria)
- Sylvain SORIN (IMJ-PRG, UPMC, Paris, France)
- Jean-Philippe TERREAUX (IRSTEA-ADBX, Bordeaux, France)
- Tristan TOMALA (École des hautes études commerciales de Paris, Paris, France)
- Vladimir VELIOV (Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria)
- Yannick VIOSSAT (Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France)

1st GLOBAQUA International Conference

Sat, 31 Oct 2015 10:39:00 +0200

The 1st GLOBAQUA International Conference will be held on 11-12 January 2016 in Freising, Germany. The interdisciplinary conference will go under the motto "Managing The Effects Of Multiple Stressors On Aquatic Ecosystems Under Water Scarcity".

The conference will serve as a platform for exchange and discussion of innovative scientific findings and methods in aquatic ecosystems research. It will focus on novel methods of environmental monitoring and modeling of various scopes, scales and structural complexity to improve process understanding the interconnectivity and feedback mechanisms of climate (regional), land use (regional), economy, hydrology and hydraulics (catchment and river), water quality (river), biology and aquatic ecosystems (reach scale). Further, the conference builds the bridge to the scientific assessment of implications on policy and management.

The deadine for submitting an abstract for the conference has been now extended until 7 Nov 2015.

More information on the conference, registration, abstract submitting is available on the GLOBAQUA website

2015 AGU Fall Meeting

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:20:00 +0300

The 2015 AGU Fall Meeting "Earth Observations in Environmental Management & Policy" will take place from 14 to 18 December in San Francisco, CA.

With nearly 24,000 attendees, the AGU Fall Meeting is the largest Earth and space science meeting in the world. Now in its 48th year, the AGU Fall Meeting is the best place to present your research, hear about the latest discoveries, trends, and challenges in the field, and network and make connections that can enhance your career.

For more information see the event's offiicial webpage: http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2015/

IUBS 2015 Frontiers in Unified Biology

Mon, 12 Oct 2015 14:58:00 +0300

The 32rd International Union of Biological Sciences General Assembly and Conference will take place from 14 to16 December 2015 in Berlin, Germany.

Symposia:

Biological Consequences of Global Change: current challenges
Building an Informatics Agenda that will deliver a Unified Biology
Integrated Biology Education for Future Earth
Integrative Climate Change Biology - Biodiversity, functional traits, and lessons from the past
BioNomenclature: Making nomenclatural codes, concepts and tools fit for modern research
Biology and the Societal Interfaces
From Urban Biology to sustainable BiodiverCities

More information available on teh official conference website.

3rd EU BON Stakeholder Round Table "Biodiversity data workflow - from data mobilisation to practice"

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 15:13:00 +0200

The 3rd EU BON Stakeholder Round Table "Biodiversity data workflow - from data mobilisation to practice" will take place on 10&11 December 2015 Granada, Spain.

One main objective of the round table is to understand how the workflow from data mobilisation to decision making functions in practice, including within the context of EU BON.

Firstly, we want to evaluate what kind of (biodiversity) data are available and what workflows and best practices already exist. Secondly, we want to assess which gaps still exist and what will be needed to improve the current situation to overcome existing barriers.

Please register here: http://societas.biodiv.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/?q=node/64

iDiv Post Conference Hackathon

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 18:23:00 +0300

Immediately following the project Annual Conference iDiv is organizing its first Science Hackathon: 4 - 6 December, Leipzig.

The aim of this hackathon is to attract researchers from a variety of iDiv member groups to catalyze the efficient realization of highly novel collaborative projects focusing on evolution and adaptation.

More information and a link to the website will be available soon.

iDiv Annual Conference 2015

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 18:18:00 +0300

The iDiv Annual Conference 2015 will take place on 2 & 3 December 2015 at BIO CITY, Leipzig. The call for abstracts is now openalso open with a deadline 15 October.

The aim of the iDiv Annual Conference is to provide a forum for scientific exchange between scientists at all levels of the iDiv consortium, and for establishing new contacts and collaborations. The conference will offer sessions on the iDiv main research areas and focusing on each of the iDiv platforms. There will be keynote talks on highlighted iDiv themes, and also a poster session.

More information is available here:

Post-conference event: The first iDiv Science Hackathon will immediately follow the conference (4 - 6 December). The aim of this hackathon is to attract researchers from a variety of iDiv member groups to catalyze the efficient realization of highly novel collaborative projects focusing on evolution and adaptation.

UNFCCC Climate Summit

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 16:26:00 +0200

The UNFCCC Climate Summit will take place between 30 November and 11 December 2015 in Paris, France.

The event will include: UNFCCC COP 21/ CMP 11 - Twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties and the eleventh session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol

More information will be available closer to the dates at: http://unfccc.int/meetings/unfccc_calendar/items/2655.php

Global Bioeconomy Summit 2015

Tue, 26 May 2015 10:19:00 +0300

The Global Bioeconomy Summit 2015 will take place on 25 & 26 November at the Berlin Congress Center (BCC), Berlin, Germany.

Food security, sustainable development, economic growth and the conservation of scarce natural resources – the promises of bioeconomy are manifold. The Global Bioeconomy Summit is the first community building platform to discuss bioeconomy policies globally. This summit builds on the post 2015 development goals to start a multilateral agenda setting process for a sustainable bioeconomy. For this purpose the German Bioeconomy Council invites more than 500 leaders from policy, research, industry and civil society to Berlin.

For more information about the congress and registrtion, please visit: http://www.gbs2015.com/home/

Nature-based Solutions to Climate Change in Urban Areas and their Rural Surroundings: Linkages between science, policy and practice

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 11:46:00 +0300

The Europena Conference "Nature-based Solutions to Climate Change in Urban Areas and their Rural Surroundings: Linkages between science, policy and practice" will take place from 17 to 19 November 2015 in Bonn, Germany.

The event is a joint European Conference held by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the European Network of Heads of Nature Conservation Agencies (ENCA) in co-operation with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) / German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv).

Climate change has significant impact on society and biodiversity in Europe. Urban inhabitants are most likely to experience climate change effects directly because currently 73 per cent of Europeans live in urban areas. Here, management of urban ecosystems offer sustainable and cost-effective solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation while contributing to human well-being.

This European conference will bring together experts from science, policy and practice to highlight and debate the importance of nature-based solutions to climate change in urban areas and their rural surroundings. Emphasize is given to the potential of nature-based approaches to create multiple-benefits.

The conference is divided into three main areas (day 1: science, day 2: practice and implementation, day 3: policy and business), each of which will be opened by keynote speakers including:

Hans Bruyninckx (Executive Director European Environmental Agency, EEA)
Wilhelm Krull (Chair of the H2020 expert group on nature-based solutions and re-naturing cities, Secretary General Volkswagen Foundation)
Georgina Mace (University College London – UCL, Director of Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research)
Christine Wamsler (Lund University, Centre for Sustainability Studies)
Nataša Jazbinšek (Head of Department for Environmental Protection City of Ljubljana and Head of working group for European Green Capital programme 2016)
Wolfgang Teubner (ICLEI Regional Director for Europe)
Kurt Vandenberghe (Director for Climate action and resource efficiency at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation)
Chantal van Ham (IUCN – EU Programme Manager Nature Based Solutions)
Dirk Sijmons (Delft University of Technology)

Keynote speeches are complemented by plenary presentations given by leading experts in the fields of urban biodiversity, climate change, and socio-economic effects of nature-based solutions, interactive sessions and a poster exhibition.

Deadline for abstract submission is 24 July 2015 (abstract submission guidelines)

Registration:

Early bird registration deadline: 18 September 2015

Final registration deadline: 30 October 2015

For more information and to register please visit: http://www.ecbcc2015.com/

8th ESP World Coference

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 11:50:00 +0300

The Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) is a worldwide network, founded in 2008, to enhance the science and practical application of ecosystem services. To facilitate the needed dialogue between scientists, policy makers and practitioners ESP organises an annual international conference in different parts of the world.

8th ESP World Coference will be held in South Africa from 9-13 November 2015 and is hosted at a very special location: Spier Wine farm and Conference Centre in Stellenbosch.

The central theme is ‘Ecosystem Services for Nature, People and Prosperity’. The conference will pay special attention to the public and private sector dialogue on how the ecosystem services concept can be used to support conservation, improve livelihoods and engage the business community.

We especially encourage delegates from businesses to attend the ESP conference in order to discuss challenges and opportunities in using the concept of ecosystem services to achieve conservation and sustainable use of our ‘natural capital’ within a market-context. The conference will provide an excellent platform to engage with experts who can generate solutions to these challenges and start making a difference in practice.

For more information and for registration, please visit the conference website: http://espconference.org/espconference2015

GEO XII and Ministerial Summit Mexico City November 2015

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:55:39 +0200

The GEO-XII Plenary and the Ministerial Summit, as well as all the associated meetings and events will be hosted by the Mexican Government and will take place at the Hotel Hilton Reforma and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mexico City from 9 to 13 November 2015.

The Twelfth Plenary Session of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO-XII), hosted by Mexico, will take place in Mexico City, from 11 to 12 November 2015. The GEO 2015 Mexico City Ministerial Summit will take place on 13 November 2015.

The GEO-XII Plenary will take place at the Hilton Reforma, Mexico City, on its first meeting day, Nov 11th 2015.

On November 12th 2015, the second day of GEO-XII Plenary, the meeting will be held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores - SRE), Plaza Juárez #20, located a few steps away from the Hilton Reforma.

Caucus Meetings and the Executive Committee Meeting, will take place from 9th-12th November, 2015, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

GEO Side Events will take place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Hotel Hilton.

The GEO exhibit will be held at the Hilton Reforma Mexico City, from November, 10th–12th, in conjunction with the LAGF 2015 exhibits, and will be open exclusively for Ministers on Thursday afternoon 12th November, 2015.

Call for side events is also open now, all submissions should be sent by 12 June 2015.

More information is available on the offical event website: http://www.earthobservations.org/geo12.php

PECS 2015 Conference

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 11:52:00 +0300

PECS 2015 will take plave fro 3 to 5 November 2015 and will gather scientists from various disciplines, from within and beyond the PECS network, to share cutting-edge research insights on social-ecological dynamics in the Anthropocene. The conference will engage and involve multiple stakeholders concerned with sustainable development and who are interested in developing new solutions and strategies. The conference is intended to highlight PECS achievements and ambitions, and to synthesize and integrate PECS-related research to provide a basis for a future social-ecological research agenda, especially in light of Future Earth.

PECS 2015 will be complemented by several side events such as topical workshops with regional focus and methods workshops. It will also include a science-policy-practice dialogue, involving a total of around 100 participants, building on a South African series of workshops and the broader Future Earth project on "Seeds of the Good Anthropocene".

For important deadlines, registration and further information, please visit the conference official website: http://www.pecs2015.org/

DINA Technical workshop

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 14:37:52 +0300

DINA Technical Comittee will have a workshop in Copenhagen with updates on ongoing module developments and coding sessions.

http://www.dina-project.net/wiki/Physical_TC_meeting_2015

SBSTTA 19 - Nineteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:42:00 +0300

SBSTTA 19 - Nineteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice will take place from 2 to 5 November 2015 in Montreal, Canada.

Article 25 of the Convention on Biological Diversity establishes an open-ended intergovernmental scientific advisory body known as the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) to provide the Conference of the Parties (COP) and, as appropriate, its other subsidiary bodies, with timely advice relating to the implementation of the Convention. As a subsidiary body of the COP, SBSTTA is to report regularly to the COP on all aspects of its work.

SBSTTA has met 18 times to date and produced a total of 193 recommendations to the Conference of the Parties, some of which have been endorsed in full by the latter. Such endorsement makes these recommendations de facto decisions of the Conference of the Parties. Parts of other recommendations have also been endorsed, and many others have been taken up in modified form.

For more information on SBSTTA past and future meetings, please visit the dedicated webpage.

What can Remote Sensing do for the Conservation of Wetlands?

Thu, 30 Apr 2015 19:32:00 +0300

The International Symposium "What can Remote Sensing do for the Conservation of Wetlands?" will take place on 23 October 2015 in parallel with the XVI Congreso de la Asociación Española de Teledetección (XVI Meeting of the Spanish Remote Sensing Association) in Seville, Spain.

The Symposium aims to become an interdisciplinary meeting for wetland managers and scientists interested in remote sensing as well as remote sensing experts doing research in wetlands.

Wetlands are fragile and dynamic ecosystems sensitive to changes in climate and land-use, and rich in biodiversity. For centuries they were considered to have little or no value, and most have been drained or transformed. In 1971 the first international convention for the protection of Wetlands, the Ramsar Convention, was signed to promote their conservation and sustainable use. Now it is recognized that wetlands provide fundamental ecosystem services, such as water regulation, filtering and purification, as well as scientific, cultural, and recreational values. Wetlands constitute an extensive array of ecosystems ranging from lakes and rivers to marshes and tidal flats. An increasing number of wetlands have some kind of legal protection, and many wetlands are monitored and actively managed.

For more information on the symposium, please visit the official webpage: http://wetlandssymposium.com/

CETAF 38 meeting

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 16:21:00 +0200

The 38th CETAF General Meeting will take place in Geneva, Switzerland on the 13th-14th October 2015 at the Musée Ariana. The meeting will be jointly hosted by the Geneva Consortium (Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva and Museum of Natural History of the City of Geneva). This meeting will constitute an ordinary General Meeting of the CETAF AISBL.

After discussion and approval of the budget, the CETAF Secretariat work plan 2016-2019 and CETAF membership plan will proposed for adoption, with renewed 3-year commitments made by CETAF members. The CETAF strategy and strategic development plan will also be launched during this meeting.

More information will be available closer to the meeting dates on the CETAF website: http://www.cetaf.org/events

Please also find the official invitation and the proposed agenda attached below.

Eye on Earth Summit 2015

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:06:00 +0300

The Eye on Earth Summit 2015 is the foremost gathering of global thought leaders from government, the private sector, academia and civil society, all committed to filling the economic, social and environmental data gap to inform and improve decision-making for sustainable development. The event will take place from 6 to 8 October 2015 in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Attendees will learn about the pioneering work of the Eye on Earth movement and network with a growing body of like-minded experts and influencers to revolutionise the way we collect, access and use data for positive change. Join the Eye on Earth community, create opportunities for future action and share your knowledge. Make a difference to current and future generations.

For more information on the event and registration. please visit: http://www.eoesummit.org/

DEST course ‘BASICS of TAXONOMY’ 4th edition

Tue, 19 May 2015 10:02:00 +0300

The 4th edition of the DEST course ‘BASICS of TAXONOMY’ will take place from 5 to16 October 2015 at the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, Kristineberg, Sweden.

Taught by renowned experts in their field, the course topics are:

- DELTA
- Digital drawing
- Scientific illustration
- Scientific writing and communication
- Scratchpads, a tool to build, publish and share information on the web

Target audience: MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers

Thanks to funding of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, this 2-weeks course is offered at a discounted rate of 550 EUR.

Fee includes accommodation and meals.

More info: http://taxonomytraining.eu/content/basics-taxonomy-describing-illustrating-and-communicating-biodiversity

GBIF GB22, Nodes Training Sessions & Global Nodes Meeting, Madagascar

Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:15:00 +0200

The official Governing Board meeting, including the GBIF symposium, will take place on 8-10 October in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Prior to that there will be Training sessions for Nodes on 4-5 October, followed by the Global Nodes Meeting on 6-7 October. Committee meetings will take place on 6 October.

A special symposium will be hosted on 7 October where all delegates are invited to attend. After the Governing Board meeting, on 11 October, there is a possibility to visit the Andasibe National Park.

Science for the Environment 2015

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 09:56:00 +0300

Science for the Environment 2015 will take place from 1 to 2 October in Aarhus, Denmark. Science for the Environment 2015 is the Third International Conference on Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.

Together with the Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER), Aarhus University invites researchers and practitioners to attend the conference and discuss the future challenges and opportunities for environmental monitoring and assessment.

Some of the main questions are:

How to best evolve environmental monitoring, in order to make use of new and smart technologies for improved and cost-effective monitoring?
How do we assess and document the value of data and knowledge of environmental ecosystems?

For further information, please visit:
http://dce-conference.au.dk/

TDWG 2015 Annual Conference

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 10:23:00 +0300

The 2015 Biodiversity Informatics TDWG Annual Conference will be held from 28 September to 3 October 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya. The theme of the conference is Applications, Standards and Capacity Building for Sustaining Global Biodiversity. Subprograms will include: Digitization, Semantic Technologies, Phyloinformatics, Outreach and Collaboration, ePublications, Trait Data, and Conservation informatics.

A 5-day capacity building workshop for African participants in the conference is being organized for the week before the conference (21-25 September). The primary focus of the training is on biodiversity collection digitization, biodiversity databases, data cleaning, and georeferencing, but other topics are being considered.

For more information about the conference, how to register, programme and call for papers, please visit the ofiicial event webpage.

Ecology at the interface: 13th European Ecological Federation (EEF) & 25th Italian Society of Ecology’s (S.It.E.) joint conference

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:03:00 +0300

The 13th European Ecological Federation (EEF) and 25th Italian Society of Ecology’s (S.It.E.) joint conference will take place in Rome from 21st - 25th September 2015.

"Ecology at the Interface" focuses on interactions at all biological levels, from membrane exchanges to food web dynamics, in addition to physical ecotones, from deep sediment-bottom water to land-atmosphere, and disciplinary ecotones linking ecology to sociology, economics, law, technology and other fields of knowledge concerning daily human life.

For 5 full days the conference expects about 1500 participants from all over Europe, proposing a rich programme articulated in a number of plenary and contributed sessions, symposia, workshops andround tables.

Deadlines for symposia and workshop proposals and abstract submission are available here and the first circular here.

The proposed venue is the Congress Centre of Rome - EUR.

You can download the full brochure here.

For more information visit the official conference website.

GfOe Annual Meeting

Fri, 08 May 2015 16:00:00 +0300

In 2015, the University of Göttingen will host the 45th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The meeting will take place from August 31st to September 4 th, 2015 in Göttingen, Germany.

The guiding theme of the 45th Annual Meeting is "Ecology for a Sustainable Future". Along the lines of this guiding theme, we will stimulate scientific discussions on basic and applied ecological topics as well as on nature conservation and management. Special focus will be given to:

Species, populations and ecosystems (e.g. interactions, competition, adaption, survival, community assembly, past and current pattern, all types of ecosystems)
ecosystem functioning (e.g. ecosystem services, processes and functions, ecological dynamics)
global change effects (e.g. climate change, land use change, nutrient deposition, invasive species, mitigation, effects on biodiversity)
impact of land use (biodiversity, ecosystem functions, restoration ecology, sustainable land management)
conservation approaches (e.g. linking ecological knowledge to nature conservation, environmental education, sustainability, community conservation, socio-ecological approaches, policy advice)

Submission of abstracts: from 31 March 2015 to 15 May 2015

For more information, registration and to submit an abstract, please visit the official webpage of teh conference: http://www.gfoe-2015.de/index.php?cat=show_start

ICCB : 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology 4th European Congress for Conservation Biology

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 09:42:00 +0300

The ICCB : 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology 4th European Congress for Conservation Biology will take place from 2 to 6 August, 2015 in Montpellier - France.

SCB’s International and European Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB & ECCB) are the most important international meeting for conservation professionals and students. They are a forum for addressing conservation challenges and for presenting new research and developments in conservation science and practice. Most importantly, ICCBs and ECCBs connect our global community of conservation professionals and are the major networking outlet for anyone interested in conservation.

The meeting theme is 'Mission biodiversity: choosing new paths for conservation', and as such we intend that ICCB-ECCB 2015 is a transdisciplinary meeting and delegates attend from a range of professions and sectors. Conservation biology has always had socioeconomic relevance but it is clear that biologists need to undertake interdisciplinary collaborations from the first inception of projects, through to implementation and dissemination of outputs. The programme will emphasise science-policy and science-society dialogues using interactive sessions and symposia.

GEO BON plans a 3-hour symposium "Essential Biodiversity Variables for conservation needs" at the ICCB-ECCB conference in Montpellier. This symposium will be about EBV developments, EBV's for CBD and national needs and EBV dataflows.

Contact Person: Jörg Freyhof (Executive Director of GEO BON; joerg.freyhof@idiv.de

The call for Symposia, Thematic Poster Exhibitions, Workshops, Round Table Discussions and Training Course Proposals is now open! The deadline is 31st October 2014 and notification of the results will be given prior to December 1st 2014.

For more information, please visit the event's dedicated website at: http://www.iccb-eccb2015.org/frontpage

GEO BON - EU BON Workshop in Manaus, Brazil

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:20:00 +0300

An GEO BON - EU BON workshop iis scheduled for 20-24 July in Manaus, Brasil for a targeted group of representatives of the different EU BON WPs or task forces.

The workshop will specifically target the following:

– Issues of designing and running biodiversity monitoring observatories (i.e. optimization and guidelines for planning biodiversity monitoring)

– Analyses of biodiversity data to be addressed for assessing changes and patterns

– Linkage of (meta-) data to EU BON portal

Being hosted in Manaus, this workshop will facilitate the integration of Brazilian and European expertise, for instance by updating about the progress made by Brazil in starting participatory resource monitoring in Brazilian National parks and the development of databases to integrate this information. The workshop will be held at the Federal University of Amazonas Experimental Site.

Kick-off meeting of ECOPOTENTIAL

Fri, 08 May 2015 16:32:00 +0300

The official kick-off meeting of the EU funded Horizon 2020 project ECOPOTENTIAL will take place on 25-26 June 2015 in the ancient Valentino Castle on the bank of the Po river in Torino, Italy.

The main objective of this project led by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) is to making Earth Observation and Monitoring Data usable for ecosystem modelling and services. This will also be done in selected Protected Areas in Europe, with a strong focus on mountain ecosystems, including a specific pilot site in the Carpathians. The project will make an important contribution to the work of the Group on Earth Observation (GEOSS) as well as UNEP Live.

More information and agenda to follow.

GEO BON Implementation Commmittee

Wed, 10 Jun 2015 14:24:14 +0300

in Leipzig

9th GEO European Projects Workshop

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:40:00 +0200

The 9th GEO European Projects Workshop will take place on 15 and 16 June 2015 in Copenhagen, co-organised by the Danish Meteorological Institute, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency.

The objective of the GEO European Projects Workshop is to bring together European players interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS). The aim is to enable participants to present their work and discuss how Europe can contribute to this international effort. Its timing has been set to maximise early insight and awareness of the new Implementation plan for the next decade of GEO as well as input to and awareness of Horizon 2020 work programme for 2016 and 2017.

Building on the experience from previous GEO European Projects Workshops, it is intended to continue working towards greater involvement of the European private sector, especially SMEs, in GEO. The workshop will also focus on user engagement, and the priorities for future flagship initiatives, foreseen to be strengthened in the next phase of GEO, in order to fulfil GEO's ambition to provide information for decision making.

While registration is now closed, due to demand the event will be recorded and streamed live on http://stream.dvc.dk/9thgeo/

More information available on the official event page: http://geo.pbe.eionet.europa.eu/

Co-located EV workshop

Fri, 08 May 2015 17:44:00 +0300

The European H2020 Coordination & Support Action ConnectinGEO (GA 641538) is organizing a new workshop on Essential Variables (EV) for further elaborating and integrating contributions from different communities/domains concerning the definition and operationalization of EV. The workshop will be held in Bari (Italy) on 11-12 June 2015 and is organized by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the Euro Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMCC).

The workshop is a follow-up of the work started within the 3rd and 4th GEOSS Science and Technology Stakeholder Workshops, to focuse on metrics that can measure progress towards the "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs), that are currently being discussed in the United Nations. The objectives of the Workshop are:

reviewing extensively the status of existing essential variables in different Societal Benefits Areas (SBA) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO);
assessing their observational needs and readiness (in terms of temporal frequency, spatial resolution, accuracy, etc.);
describing the monitoring networks currently operational;
capturing gaps and requirements for EV operational definition (mainly in terms of integration of all types of Earth Observations);
identifying the process underlying EV definition in support to less mature domains and the elaboration of new variables.

At the end of the workshop a document on the EV status, definition process, gaps and requirements for operationalization shall be produced.

Globis-B kick-off meeting

Fri, 08 May 2015 18:02:00 +0300

The Globis-B kick-off meeting will take place in Amsterdam from on 8-10 June (Monday till Wednesday). The kick-off meetingwill bring the consortium together to talk through the different parts of the project. A mini-symposium is also planned for Wednesday morning with three talks from international speakers about research topics that are relevant for the project.

Globis-B stands for GLOBal Infrastructures for Supporting Biodiversity research and is a H2020 project within the coordination & support action funding scheme of the H2020-INFRASUPP-2014-2 call. The main aim of the project is to bring together scientists with global research infrastructure operators and legal interoperability experts to address the research needs and infrastructure services required to calculate Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV). Currently we are finalizing the grant agreement with the EU and the project will probably starting on 1st June 2015.

Green Week

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 15:57:00 +0200

The 2015 edition of Green Week, the biggest annual conference on European environment policy, will take place from 3 to 5 June at The Egg Conference Centre, Rue Bara, in Brussels. The theme will be nature and biodiversity.

Green Week is open to the public and participation is free of charge.

For more inforation about the conference, programme and registartion, please visit the official conference webpage: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/greenweek/

EU BON General Meeting

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:08:00 +0200

The EU BON 2015 General Meeting will be held from 1 to 4 June 2015 at the Clare College Conferencing, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

An overview of the programme can be found here. The complete programme and more information will follow soon.

To register for the Meeting please visit the registration page.

Please see also the Meeting's venue and accommodation pages.

More inforrmation on the official event page.

GEO BON 2nd RS4EBV workshop

Thu, 30 Apr 2015 19:49:00 +0300

Teh GEO BON 2nd RS4EBV workshop will take place 27 to 28 May 2015 in Frascati, Italy.

Empowering Biodiversity Research conference

Mon, 11 May 2015 16:28:55 +0300

There is a world of tools, standards and data out there, ready for you to use. Biodiversity Informatics deals with the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information for improved management, presentation, discovery, exploration and analysis of scientific data. Combined with open data sources on the Internet, this is a powerful new approach in doing research. During this conference, organised by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform and several key institutes, we would like to take you on a trip to the world of biodiversity informatics & open data. After this conference a series of related workshops will be organized.

The 36th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE)

Thu, 07 Aug 2014 17:21:00 +0300

36th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE) will take place on May 11-15, 2015 in Berlin, Germany.

This 36th Symposium will represent a major event in the long series of internationally recognized ISRSE meetings. The overall theme of the symposium is the use of Earth Observation systems and related Remote Sensing techniques for understanding and managing the Earth environment and resources.

The event will also feature sessions "Biodiversity and Conservation" aiming to show the developments and potential of remote sensing within biodiversity and conservation science.

Find out more about this session in the brochure attached below or n the event website: www.isrse36.org

All 12 themes for abstract submission are listed in the Technical programme: http://www.isrse36.org/technical-programme/ and under Abstract submission: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/ISRSE36/sessionprogramme and Deadline for Abstracts is latest 9 November 2014.

Registration: http://www.isrse36.org/registration/

GEO Workplan Symposium 2015

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 11:29:00 +0200

The GEO Workplan Symposium 2015 is planned to take place on 5-7 May 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland.

For more information, please consult the GEO meetings list.

SETAC Europe 25th Annual Meeting - Environmental protection in a multi-stressed world: challenges for science, industry and regulators

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 17:29:00 +0300

The SETAC Europe 25^th Annual Meeting will be held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, from 3-7 May 2015.

The innovative use of chemicals and nanomaterials in new technologies, industry and agriculture challenges many aspects of the ecosystem functioning of the global environment. However, these new technologies and materials also offer opportunities to remediate or minimise these anthropogenic insults. Finding innovative solutions to environmental problems is ever more important in the current economic scenario. This international conference brings together experts from government, industry, consultancy and academia to meet this challenge. The conference will focus on the most recent advances in environmental sciences and will provide platforms for implementing this knowledge, for improving the protection of our environment and to shape policies from current viewpoints to future needs.

Learn more here: http://barcelona.setac.eu/general_info/welcome!/?contentid=790&pr_id=766&last=769&sub=790

37th CETAF General Meeting

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 16:43:00 +0200

The 37th CETAF General Meeting that will take place in Meise, Belgium on 21-22 April, 2015. The meeting will take place at the at the Botanic Garden Meise, in the Bouchout Domain, Nieuwelaan 38, 1860 Meise (Belgium).

CETAF37 will focus on conducting the annual CETAF business, including CETAF’s financial issues and administrative activities, as well as the consolidation of the CETAF strategic development plan. A workshop on the activities that will be undertaken by CETAF within the context of the CETAF strategy has been organized for the second day of the meeting.

More information will be available on the CETAF website: http://www.cetaf.org/events

BON-in-a-Box workshop

Wed, 10 Jun 2015 14:18:56 +0300

http://geobon.org/bon-in-a-box-workshop-colombia/

GEO BON in partnership with Colombia’s Instituto von Humboldt held the first BON in a Box (Biodiversity Observation Network in a Box) regional workshop in Armenia, Colombia.

Over 50 participants from Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and several ‘external’ GEO BON participants convened over 4 days to enthusiastically define the structure and content for this regional toolkit for biodiversity observations.

The workshop outcomes are directly guiding the development of the first prototype of this web-based, customizable toolkit which will be released in November of this year.

EU BON was represented by Hannu Saarenmaa, who gave a presentation on using GBIF IPT for sharing sample based data and the related new data standards.

European Geosciences Union General Assembly - incl. Workshop Aggregation and coordination of Earth observation networks.

Tue, 06 Jan 2015 12:20:35 +0200

European Geosciences Union
General Assembly 2015
Vienna | Austria | 12 – 17 April 2015

http://www.egu2015.eu/home.html

One Workshop partiicluarly relevant for EU BON: ESSI2.17 Aggregation, consolidation and coordination of Earth observation networks. Harmonization and gaps

Convener: Joan Masó
Co-Convener: Ivette Serral

Abstract
We are investing in many efforts in creating pan-European or global EO thematic networks but are managed independently and coordination between them is limited. Europe is investing in the Sentinel constellation an at the same time, several initiatives are setting out to create, maintain and operationalize networks of in-situ sensors. These observation networks are usually conceived with a specific purpose in mind (e.g., air quality monitoring in the main cities or coastal water contamination), and they often lack a general coverage, are scattered irregularly in the territory, and sometimes are removed when the measurement campaign ends. There is a need for integrating systems and coordinating them more efficiently, explore synergies and make progress in harmonized and extend them.
Some initiatives aim to coordinate several themes into a single observation set. This is the case of the Critical Zone Exploration (the Earth’s outer layer from vegetation canopy to the soil and groundwater that sustains human life). The CZEN (Critical Zone Exploration Network; http://www.czen.org) is a network of field sites investigating processes within the Critical Zone.

This session is asking for presentations on the coordination between observation network examples and solutions to overcome technical and political barriers that help to reduce the cost and increase value by combining and sharing structures. Papers discussing gaps or redundancies in the current Earth observation networks are also welcome.

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/session/18560

FishBase and Fish Taxonomy Training Session 2015 (Continues until 26 June)

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 07:12:00 +0200

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren (Belgium) is part of the FishBase Consortium and responsible for the information on the fresh- and brackish water fishes of Africa. Through an agreement with the Belgian Development Cooperation and as part of the FishBase program, the RMCA has five grants available for a 3-month training program in the use of FishBase and the taxonomy of African fishes.

The training includes three subsets:

A detailed explanation of FishBase in all its aspects;
A training in the taxonomy of African fishes;
A case study based on data from FishBase or on taxa for which taxonomic problems have been encountered.

This course has been offered annually since 2005 and is held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Leuvensesteenweg 13, B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium). To apply for traineeship and for more information, please click here or here. Please note that for 2015, this course will be given in English only.

Questions? Contact Dimitri Geelhand de Merxem (dimitri.geelhand@africamuseum.be).

Open Science at the Global Scale: Sharing e-Infrastructures, Sharing Knowledge, Sharing Progress

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 10:27:00 +0200

The "Open Science at the Global Scale: Sharing e-Infrastructures, Sharing Knowledge, Sharing Progress" conference will take place on March 31, 2015 in Brussels, Belgium. The conference is organized under the aegis of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) to bring together policy and research stakeholders from all the regions targeted by the project (Asia, Africa, Arabia, India, Europe and Latin America) to discuss major developments and perspectives in the field of global e-Infrastructures for Research and Education.

The main outcomes of the CHAIN-REDS project will be also presented on this occasion:

The development of a Distributed Computing Infrastructure interoperation model between Europe and other regions
The promotion of international standards and technical guidelines for interoperability of cloud services across continents
One of the largest existing e-Infrastructure-related digital information systems, the CHAIN-REDS Knowledge Base
A complete methodology for better sharing and using scientific data
The CHAIN-REDS Science Gateway: a single portal for accessing remote computing and data services anywhere in the world
The support of the creation of Identity Federations to make Authentification and Authorisation easier for users and service providers worldwide
The main outcomes of the six awareness-raising workshops organised by CHAIN-REDS in Asia, Africa, Arabia, and Latin America

For Registration and more information, please visit the oficial conference webpage: https://agenda.ct.infn.it/event/1110/

Africa Rising: Mobilising Biodiversity Data for Sustainable Development conference

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 16:06:00 +0200

From 22 to 24 March 2015, the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) will host an international conference at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, entitled, Africa Rising: Mobilising Biodiversity Data for Sustainable Development. The event is being organised in partnership with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the United Nations Environment Programme – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). It aims to:

Accelerate regional understanding of the biodiversity data-science-policy value chain and draw attention to the opportunities and solutions that biodiversity data presents for sustainable development in Africa;
Strengthen regional engagement, learning networks, and collaborative synergies with a view to streamlining the data-science-policy value chain; and
Galvanise political commitment to mobilising Africa’s biodiversity data.

The event emanates from the project, Mobilising Africa’s Biodiversity Data, which is generously supported by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation and entails developing a strategy for capturing, digitising and publishing Africa’s policy-relevant biodiversity data whilst strengthening regional capacity and collaboration in biodiversity information management.

More information is available at: http://www.sanbi.org/news/sanbi-host-africa-rising-mobilising-biodiversity-data-sustainable-development-conference

The 2nd EU BON training on data sharing tools

Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:45:00 +0200

Place and date: Joensuu, Finland, 19 March 2015

Venue: Joensuu Science Park, Digitarium and the Conference Facility "Network Oasis"

The 2nd EU BON training on data sharing tools will take place side by side to CETAF/EU BON informatics workshops (see full program and logistic details here). The event will be organised by UEF and Digitarium, EU BON consortium member and work package leader (WP2), in collaboration with CETAF ISTC and other EU BON work packages.

Next topics will be covered:

Introduction to GEOSS, GEO BON, EU BON (Hannu Saarenmaa)
Information architecture of EU BON (Antonio Garcia)
Data standards, Darwin Core and extensions for sample-based quantitative data (Éamonn Ó Tuama)
Demonstration of GBIF/EU BON IPT for monitoring networks (Larissa Smirnova and Franck Theeten)
Practical exercise with sample dataset (Larissa Smirnova and Franck Theeten)
Practical exercise with own data (all trainees)

The workshop will include lectures and hands-on work, so participants are required to bring their own laptops. We will provide information and instructions on software installations. If the participants want to install IPT tool themselves, they can read and learn how to de it here. For the practical exercises it’s recommended to bring own data (taxonomic, monitoring).

EU BON and CETAF joint informatics workshop

Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:51:00 +0200

Place and date: Joensuu, Finland, 17-20 March 2015

Purpose of this meeting is to launch several EU BON products, give a related training workshop, work on upcoming deliverables, and gain synergies by working with CETAF. Registration for the workshop is now open, see below!

More nformation is available here: http://digitarium.fi/en/content/eu-bon-and-cetaf-joint-informatics-workshop

RDA Fifth Plenary Meeting

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 15:55:00 +0200

The Fifth RDA Plenary Meeting will take place in San Diego, California from March 9 -11, 2015, at the Paradise Point Hotel.

RDA plenaries are multi-day meetings held twice a year in various locations worldwide to provide the RDA community an opportunity to network and collaborate with peers in various disciplines, and hear from industry experts and world leaders on topics related to research data sharing and exchange.

Celebrating its second year as an international organization, RDA will highlight the accomplishments of its membership. With the theme, "Adopt-a-Deliverable", focus will be on the outputs from the initial set of RDA Working Groups, and on ensuring lasting impact in the research data sharing community through adoption by other organizations.

The RDA Fifth Plenary is open to RDA members and the public. The Plenary welcomes those individuals that share RDA core values of creating the building blocks of common data infrastructures that can bridge disciplinary activities under a community-driven and non-profit model.

Data experts, scientists, researchers and other professionals are encouraged to attend, as well as students and early career professionals in industries related to the fields of research data sharing and exchange.

More information: https://rd-alliance.org/plenary-meetings/rda-fifth-plenary-meeting.html

Second EU BON WP6 & 7 Workshop

Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:24:00 +0200

The second EU BON WP6 & 7 Workshop will take place from 16 to18 Feb 2015 in Aix-en-Provence, France.

The objective of the workshop is to further develop on cross WP and task interactions and to define outputs.

EU BON Task Force Meeting

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:21:00 +0200

Following the GEO BON RS4EBV workshop, an EU BON Task Force meeting will take place on 29 January 2015 at the IDIV, Leipzig.

RS4EBV workshop

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:07:00 +0200

The RS4EBV workshop organized by GEO BON will take place on 28 & 29 January 2015 at the iDIV, Leipzig.

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST): Botanical Nomenclature training course

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:08:00 +0300

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) is organizing a Botanical Nomenclature training course targeted at MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers, professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics. The course has a duration of one week and will take place between 26-30 January 2015 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK.

Deadline for registrationis 10 October 2014. Participants will receive notification by 24 October 2014 whether accepted to the course. To register and to learn more about the course visit the official webpage: http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/botanical-nomenclature-3

Course description
This in-depth course will teach the principles of plant nomenclature according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN) so that participants can apply good nomenclatural practice when undertaking taxonomic revisions, compiling checklists etc. This will be achieved by lectures illustrated with examples from the ICN, workshop sessions applying what has been learned to "real life" cases, and by encouraging participants to discuss nomenclatural problems they have encountered.

Participants will have time to pursue their own research interests using the collections at Kew, with the emphasis on identifying and solving nomenclatural problems.
Short seminars will give participants the opportunity to present nomenclatural problems relevant to their own research.

Horizon 2020 ICT-16 Big Data networking day

Mon, 15 Dec 2014 13:25:00 +0200

The aim of the event is to inform and guide prospective applicants preparing project proposals, to facilitate sharing of ideas and experiences. It will give participants the chance to network and to find partners for their projects.

ICT-16 is part of Horizon 2020's ICT work programme 2014-2015

The activities supported under this topic contribute to the Big Data challenge by addressing the fundamental research problems related to the scalability and responsiveness of analytics capabilities (such as privacy-aware machine learning, language understanding, data mining and visualization). Special focus is on industry-validated, user-defined challenges like predictions, and rigorous processes for monitoring and measurement.

The current outline of the draft agenda can be found HERE

Registration

The registration to the event is now open and is on the first-come-first-serve basis. Click HERE to register. The closing date is 8 January 2015.

After the registration you will have the possibility to upload a presentation for the ICT-16 networking and partner finding session which will take place in the afternoon (max 3 slides for 3 minutes presentation).

In parallel to the ICT-16 networking session a workshop on multilingual data value chains will be organised. Therefore, you should pay attention to which part of the event you enrol.

Please note that bilateral meetings with EC Project Officers to discuss proposal ideas (proposal clinics) will *not* be possible, in compliance with H2020 regulations.

More information available here.

IPBES Third Plenary

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 16:35:00 +0300

The IPBES Third Plenary is now announced to be held from 12 to 17 January 2015 in Bonn, Germany.

Governments and Observers are invited to participate in the third session of the IPBES plenary meeting , the invitation letter with detailed information about this meeting is available here.

The deadline for online registration is 15 September 2014.

International Biogeography Society: 7th Biennial Conference

Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:23:00 +0300

The University of Bayreuth welcomes the International Biogeography Society for its 7th international conference, taking place on 8-12 January 2015. This modern research university has a major focus on ecological research housed in the Bayreuth Center for Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER). Novel concepts for research and teaching are established such as the Ecological-Botanical Gardens and the Global Change Ecology study program.

The surroundings of Bayreuth are characterized by outstanding geological and climatic heterogeneity. Isolated fragments of natural ecosystems occur within a highly diverse cultural landscape. It was in the district of Bayreuth where Alexander von Humboldt, a leader in the early history of biogeography, gained his first experience in fieldwork after he finished his studies. At the end of the 18th century, before travelling the world, he worked as director of mining for the regional administration. Various places close to Bayreuth are linked to his scientific development.

The conference will be marked by four plenary symposia, keynote lectures by the awardees of the society’s Alfred Russel Wallace Award and the MacArthur and Wilson Award, contributed paper sessions, and dynamic poster sessions over the lunch and evening. Topical focus sessions will span the breadth of biogeography, from watersheds to the global scale, from Paleozoic to the Anthropocene, and from microbes to megafauna.

Essential details about the conference, and about the surrounding area, are available via the links above. Information will be updated as details become available in the coming months, so please check back occasionally or stay informed via Facebook and Twitter.

Symposium: PS-2 Tracking Changes from Space: Advances of Remote Sensing in Biogeography

A key problem that biogeographers and ecologists have strived to understand is the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of the biota. In this age of climatic and land use changes and rapid rates of species extinctions, such knowledge has become an essential component for management and conservation. The synoptic view provided by earth-imaging sensors constitutes an important source of information on the distribution of habitats and biodiversity patterns at different spatial and temporal scales. The traditional approach to using these data has involved the classification of discrete land cover types which are then related to species distributions. A critical limitation of this approach is that many important dynamics are obscured as the variance is lost within arbitrary land cover classes. In recent years, novel analytical techniques and open source software have been developed that more fully exploit the spatial, spectral and temporal information content of remotely sensed imagery in order to quantify a broader range of ecosystem characteristics. This symposium features advances in the synoptic assessment of species distributions and biodiversity patterns including the development of methodologies for assessment, monitoring, and modeling, as well as their implications for management and conservation.

More about the program and speakers available on the conference webpage: http://www.bayceer.uni-bayreuth.de/ibs2015/

British Ecological Society and French Ecological Society (BEsFE) joint 2014 annual meeting 9 – 12 December, France

Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:49:00 +0200

The British Ecological Society and the French Ecology Society are pleased to invite you to Lille for a joint conference which will bring together for the first time ecologists of our two countries. The aim of the conference will promote exchanges and debates on major advances in scientific ecology, and strengthen cooperation between the French and British researchers of tomorrow. The meeting will be held on 9 – 12 December at the Grand Palais, Lille, France.

The British Ecological Society and French Ecological Society invite proposals for symposia sessions at their 2014 Annual Meeting. Symposia sessions at the Annual Meeting highlight some of the most important and timely science in ecology. They provide the overarching structure and scientific focal point to the meeting.

The topics provide a showcase and forum for the discussion of key ecological questions, vision for the future and encourage integration among disciplines. As ever, timely and well organised submissions from across the breadth of ecology are welcome; however, building on the bi-national meeting and the introduction of the EU Horizon 2020 programme of research funding, we particularly encourage submissions that highlight international and EU focused topics:

•    Agro-ecology and the CAP
•    Biodiversity and ecosystem services
•    Evolutionary ecology and disease
•    Marine ecology and the EU Marine Directive
•    Freshwater ecology and the EU Water Directive
•    Horizon 2020 Tackling Societal Challenges: http://bit.ly/193Fbo3

The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2014.

The three full days of science can accommodate 18 half day symposia sessions. Symposia proposals should include one keynote speaker allocated a 30 minute presentation and then five invited speakers, each allocated 15 minute slots. Time devoted to synthesis and discussion is possible, but at the discretion of the organisers. In exceptional circumstances, we will consider a full day session.

Proposers are responsible for the speakers submitting their abstracts and registrations on time.

- See more at: http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/events/current_future_meetings/2014-annual-meeting/

Citizens’ Observatories: Empowering European Society - Open Conference

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:06:00 +0300

The European Commission Directorate-General for Research & Innovation and the European Union-funded Citizens’ Observatories projects invite you to the conference "Citizens’ Observatories: Empowering European Society", to be held on 4th December 2014 at the Management Centre Europe, Brussels.

This one day conference will look at the role and opportunities for active citizen participation in environmental monitoring and policy making. The event will provide opportunities to engage with experts and practitioners working across a range of European citizen science initiatives and policy making bodies, and to find out more about the work of the five Citizens’ Observatory projects.

The event includes two main sessions for stimulating the discussion:

"Citizens Observatories and their value for decision making" - talks from the Commission, from EEA, from EPAs, from local authorities and also representatives from citizens, with their own views and experiences, followed by a round table with the speakers where we can discuss about the usefulness of Citizen Science in environmental policy (suitable scenarios for first implementations, possible ways of collaboration and channels of communication, fears and expectations of policy makers and also of citizens, benefits, market exploitation, etc). Seed questions will be fine-tuned in the upcoming weeks.
"Panel session on Challenges of Citizens’ Observatories" - a second round table focused on challenges these initiatives are facing (sustainability, governance, data protection, big data, legitimacy of actions by scientists, etc.) both with researchers and decision makers.

For more information, to register and see the agenda, pleae visit: http://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/CitObsEES2014

2nd Data Management Workshop

Wed, 07 May 2014 10:51:00 +0300

The 2nd Data Management Workshop will be held from 28 to 29 November 2014 at the University of Cologne. The focus of this workshop is on (interdisciplinary) research data management.

This workshop is mainly organized by the research data management projects (INF-Projects) of the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre / Transregio 32 (CRC/TR32) ‘Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Systems: monitoring, modelling and data assimilation’ and the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre 806 (CRC806) ‘Our Way to Europe: Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary’. The project database of the CRC806 is accessible at www.crc806db.de.

Important Dates

Deadline for poster abstracts: 26th September, 2014
Deadline for full paper (6-12 pages) for workshop proceedings: 26th September, 2014
Deadline for workshop registration: 1st November, 2014

The preliminary Programme and more information on the Workshop are available here.

EU BON Second Stakeholder Roundtable on Citizen Science

Fri, 22 Aug 2014 15:59:00 +0300

The next EU BON Roundtable will be held on the 27th November, at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.

The aim of the Roundtable on Citizen Science is to explore how and with which means EU BON can support citizen science activities. EU BON may serve citizen scientists in many aspects, and here the citizen science community and biodiversity data community is given a forum to exchange ideas and develop perspectives. So this roundtable brings together data provider as well as the user community and opens the discussion on the future of workflows. We will have an introductory talk of Jose-Miguel Rubio-Iglesias from the European Commission on the role of Citizen Science as one option to improve the science-society bridge, and further contributions from data providers, portal developers, and innovative thinkers.

See the final agenda below and more information in the attached pfd-Document.

CONTACT

Dr. Katrin Vohland ( katrin.vohland@mfn-berlin.de )

Dr. Florian Wetzel (florian.wetzel@mfn-berlin.de)

GEO-XI Plenary

Wed, 18 Jun 2014 09:46:00 +0300

The Eleventh Plenary Session of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO-XI), hosted by Switzerland, will take place in Geneva at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), from 13 to 14 November 2014.

The Plenary, Side Events, and all other related meetings will take place in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) building, located at 7 bis, avenue de la Paix, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.

The Group on Earth Observations is coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS. GEO was launched in response to calls for action by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and by the G8 (Group of Eight) leading industrialized countries. These high-level meetings recognized that international collaboration is essential for exploiting the growing potential of Earth observations to support decision making in an increasingly complex and environmentally stressed world.

More information about the event is available here: http://www.earthobservations.org/geo11.php

BioVeL: In Practice and in Future

Tue, 15 Jul 2014 10:08:00 +0300

BioVel is organizing a one-day workshop "BioVeL: In Practice and in Future". The event will take place on 13 Nov 2014 in Institut Océanographique, Paris, France. It aims at sharing BioVel experience obtained during the project's efforts to build a virtual laboratory for biodiversity research. Plans for the future of BioVel will be also presented.

The event will be structured around the 3 key goals that encapsulate the BIH2013 initiative.

1) Integration: Making better use of existing data and tools.

2) Cooperation: Working together towards a global biosphere model.

3) Promotion: Informatics leadership to serve the needs of science and policy.

Your registration by September 15 is your RSVP. To register, click here.
Hotel information, close to meeting venue, here.

IUCN World Parks Congress 2014

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 09:53:00 +0200

Held once every 10 years, the IUCN World Parks Congress provides a unique opportunity to bring about change, not only for today, or tomorrow, but for the decade ahead. It will be a gathering not just for protected area professionals but for everyone who cares about the health of humanity and our natural world. On behalf of the IUCN and its partners, Parks Australia and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services, I encourage you all to join us on this journey and help provide inspiring solutions for our planet’s most precious natural areas.

Congress registration is now open online. The ‘Early Bird’ registration fee is available until 30 June, and you can also benefit from the preferential rates for IUCN Members, Commission members and staff.

An excellent way to keep up to date is to visit the World Parks Congress website and to subscribe to the Congress newsletter.

ECOSCOPE - SINP joint seminar on Observation systems & EBVs concept

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:06:00 +0300

ECOSCOPE (Network of Biodiversity Research Observatories) associates the SINP (Information System on Nature and Landscapes) to a shared event that will focus on the complementarity between "research - expertise" on biodiversity through the emerging concept of "Essential Biodiversity Variables" (EBVs).

The seminar scheduled for Monday, November 3, 2014 in Paris is open to scientists, observatories’ managers and their teams, and to all who are involved in the study of the state and dynamics of biodiversity for research and expertise.

The aims of this seminar are to increase awareness and understanding of EBVs, their interest for observatories (visibility, synergies) to benefit to observatories’ scientific managers and data users. It is also to define how this concept can be implemented at national scale, in connection with international initiatives.

Programme will be available in available in September, for registration: follow the link !

SciDataCon 2014: International conference on data sharing and integration for global sustainability

Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:21:00 +0200

The SciDataCon 2014 will take place on 2–5 November 2014 in New Delhi, India and will be hosted by the Indian National Science Academy. With high-level keynotes, a mix of plenary and parallel sessions, and a stimulating poster session, SciDataCon is conceived as a focussed—yet inclusive—conference to address the issues most important to the global scientific and research community as they pertain to data and information. The International Scientific Programme Committee will play a key role in implementing the scientific programme with innovative online consultation and input from research and data science communities worldwide.

The sustainability challenges facing society today cannot be solved without multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on global sustainability that requires the use, sharing and integration of data across scientific disciplines and domains and from international sources. The effectiveness and credibility of this research will rely on the availability to the scientific and research community of quality-assessed and interoperable datasets.

To facilitate the work of international research undertakings—including the Future Earth international research programme on global sustainability launched by ICSU and its partners in 2014—and amplify the message of like-minded global data initiatives promoting data sharing and interoperability—including the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the recently established Research Data Alliance (RDA)—SciDataCon 2014 will highlight the theme of Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability.

Applications for expert members of the International Scientific Programme Committee are invited. Please submit applications no later than 14 February 2014 using the online form available here.

Biodiversity and Food Security – From Trade-offs to Synergies

Wed, 28 May 2014 08:57:00 +0300

3^rd International Conference on Biodiversity and the UN Millennium Development Goals - October 29-31, 2014, Aix-en-Provence, France

This international conference is the third in a series, organized by the French CNRSInstitut Ecologie et Environnement (InEE) and the German Leibniz Association (WGL).

The goal is to identify science-based solutions for global sustainability focusing on the issues of biodiversity and food security. Current ecological, economic and societal challenges for development require a holistic understanding of food security and environmental management: from this perspective, biodiversity can be seen as key to overcome trade-offs and to develop synergies between the food system and the conservation of landscapes, ecosystems, and species. The conference seeks to attract scientists from basic and applied research. It involves policy makers and other stakeholders concerned with biodiversity and food security themes who are interested in developing new solutions and strategies. It will connect researchers and stakeholders from natural sciences, social sciences, economics, humanities, technology and related fields.

http://biodiv2014.sciencesconf.org/

TDWG Conference 2014, Sweden

Wed, 18 Jun 2014 09:59:00 +0300

TDWG 2014 conference will take place in the town of Jönköping in Sweden co-organized by the Swedish GBIF node and Destination Jönköping. The dates of the event are confirmed to be from 27th to 31st of October 2014.

TDWG 2014 was first scheduled to take place in Kenya, however, due to the unfortunate local situation and the recent attacks in Kenya, many governments have issued warnings to their citizens forbidding or strongly discouraging travel to Kenya. The local organizers made great efforts to ensure a proper and secure venue for a successful TDWG Conference. However, the executive received indications that quite a few participants would be unable to travel to the meeting, which brought the necessity to change the location to Europe.

Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) is an annual conference. The theme of the 2014 meeting in Sweden is Applications and Data Standards for Sustaining Biodiversity. Subprograms will include: Applications, Semantic Technologies, Capacity Building, Phyloinformatics, Outreach and Collaboration, ePublications, Trait Data. We are issuing a call for symposia or workshop proposals for the conference. Capacity Building sessions are being planned before and during the conference.

Final agenda is now available here.

Final SCARCE International Conference

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:20:00 +0300

The final SCARCE International Conference "River Conservation under Water Scarcity: Integration of water quantity and quality in Iberian Rivers under global change" will take place on 20 - 21 October 2014 in Terragona, Spain.

SCARCE is a multipurpose project that aims to describe and predict the relevance of global change impacts on water availability, water quality and ecosystem services in Mediterranean river basins of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as their impacts on the human society and economy. The project has assembled a multidisciplinary team of leading scientists in the fields of hydrology, geomorphology, chemistry, ecology, ecotoxicology, economy, engineering and modelling, in an unknown effort in the CONSOLIDER framework. The topics of the Final SCARCE International Conference are:

Integrating the effects of chemical quality with environmental stressors on biodiversity and human risks
Linking chemical exposure and biological effects
Integrated assessment of water quantity and quality and Global Change
Integrating results to predict global change impacts on freshwater ecosystem services
Global change and adaptation and mitigation measures
Prediction of future threats and mitigation proposals in the light of the analysis of the economic and social impacts
Water scarcity, freshwater ecosystem services and integration in RBMPs
Integrating science and policy

The Conference is planned in form of oral talks, posters and discussions, where experts from different fields can share their knowledge.

The conference invites to anyone working on water sustainability to share knowledge to face a changing world in water resources management.

The final conference programme is available an attachment below.

36th General Meeting of CETAF

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 16:21:00 +0300

The 36th General Meeting of CETAF that will take place in Vienna, Austria, on the 14th-15th October 2014 at the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien. This meeting will constitute an ordinary General Meeting of the CETAF AISBL.

CETAF 36 will focus on the finalisation of CETAF strategy and strategic development plan, and discussion of the role of CETAF in European Cultural Heritage initiatives and common European infrastructures. In this context, the new work plan of the General Secretariat has been drawn up, following the recent developments in the Consortium, to support and underpin the global CETAF strategy that is to be presented during CETAF 36.

The meeting will take place at the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, located at Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria – access to the meeting will be via the vistors entrance situated between the two museums (the entrance facing the Kunsthistorisches Museum). Please find more information about transport and accommodation attached. The meeting is scheduled to start on Tuesday, 14th October 2014 at 12.00 hrs and to finish at 17.00 hrs on Wednesday, 15th October 2014.

On Monday the 13th October, a CETAF Workshop on Earth Sciences will take place at the Museum, organized and coordinated by Arne Bjørlykke, Director of the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo, Norway. The meetings of the Collection Policy Board (CPB) and the European Journal of Taxonomy (EJT) steering committee are scheduled for Thursday 16th October.

More information available on the CETAF website: http://www.cetaf.org/

Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12)

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 17:11:00 +0300

The Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) will take place from 6 to 17 October 2014 in the Alpensia Convention Center, Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea.

The theme of the conference will be "Biodiversity for Sustainable Development":
- To raise international awareness about the essential role of biodiversity and its contribution to sustainable development.
- To put strong emphasis on biodiversity at the discussions of Post-2015 Development Agenda and setting of Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).

Mor einformation is available on the conference website: http://www.cbdcop12.kr/eng/sub/conference/conference01_2.php

Creative-B final event

Thu, 04 Sep 2014 14:54:00 +0300

The Creative-B project final even will take place on 26 Sep 2014 in Brussels. During this event, a roadmap of global data infrastructures supporting biodiversity and ecosystem research will be presented.

In the last two decades quite a number of activities emerged to manage, share and deploy the fast growing data volumes from observations, collections, sensors and other data sources in biodiversity and ecosystem research. This data "gravity" pushed new applications and services, resulting in the development and establishment of large-scale research infrastructures. Following an initiative of the European LifeWatch research infrastructure, a number of large-scale data research infrastructures* with a global outreach in this scientific area teamed together in the project Creative-B (Coordination of Research e-Infrastructures Activities Toward an International Virtual Environment for Biodiversity)**.

The collaboration resulted in drafting a global Roadmap focusing on common priorities and infrastructure engagement, enhancing infrastructure interoperability, and the legal and governance implications. Specific issues are addressing challenges to sustain data availability and services, user interaction and value delivery, cooperation for infrastructure interoperability as well as legal interoperability, and finally education and training. This Roadmap shows how global interaction is promoting complementary development while fostering synergy for supporting frontier research and addressing global and societal challenges. The event in Brussels will also highlight some implications for other stakeholders such as funding and governmental bodies.

Registration is now open here: http://creative-b-2014.sciencesconf.org/registration

Find out more on the event website, and in the event program.

ExpeER International Conference 2014

Mon, 22 Sep 2014 16:44:00 +0300

The "International Conference on Experimentation in Ecosystem Research in a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities" will take place on the 24th and 25th of September at the National Museum of Natural History (auditorium de la Grande Galerie de l'Evolution), Paris, France.

Context:

The Earth's rapidly changing environment is putting critical ecosystem services at risk. There are many challenges involved in understanding global environmental changes, and in providing societies with the policy-relevant knowledge base to deal with them. These challenges will reach across many aspects of scientific endeavour. Indeed, the research community requires state-of-the-art research infrastructures (RIs) to have the capability to explain and predict global environmental changes. In this context the Experimentation in Ecosystem Research conference will provide a platform for discussions on cutting-edge technological tools, large-scale integrative experimental design, technical constraints, data access and last but not least ecosystem modelling. The conference will attract speakers and delegates from around the world and will offer opportunities to reinforce global cooperation.

Main topics:

Grand challenges: With the current set of Experimental Research infrastructures in ecosystem science, do we have the capacity to tackle the grand challenges of today and tomorrow?
In vitro and in natura : How realistic are they, and how they can be better linked?
Technologies: Which emerging technologies could enhance (or are needed for) the performance and services offered by our RIs?
Data: Towards an e-infrastructure for ecosystem research - challenges and opportunities
Modelling: How accurate is our capacity to forecast and upscale, and what is missing? How can we communicate uncertainty? How do we strike the right balance between modelling and experiments?

The conference is organized under the framework of the European FP7 project ExpeER ( www.expeeronline.eu )

Find out more in the flyer attached below or on the event's website: https://colloque6.inra.fr/expeer-conference

International Seminar on Participatory Monitoring for the Management of Biodiversity and Natural Resources

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 16:02:00 +0300

Recognizing the important role of innovation and benchmark the various initiatives of participatory monitoring in the world, the Ministry of Environment of Brazil, ARPA, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, Mangrove Project in Brazil, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society, Ecological Research Institute and Nordisk Fond og Miljø is Udvikling, with the support of the Convention on Biological Diversity are organizing the International Seminar on Participatory Monitoring for the Management of Biodiversity and Natural Resources to take place in Manaus, Brazil between 22 and 26 September 2014.

Worldwide there is a growing demand for information on the state of conservation of biodiversity as a key tool to support the management of natural resources and depending on the investment strategies of many countries in the protection of nature and sustainable resource use tool. Several initiatives for monitoring biodiversity and natural resources have emerged around the world in an attempt to meet this need. Many of these initiatives rely on the involvement of persons residing, use natural resources or participate in the management of the areas where they develop the monitoring, often from traditional populations.

The community involvement of these populations may happen for several reasons and through different mechanisms, increasing both related to biodiversity conservation as the empowerment of local communities results. Although varied, the role of populations has intensified and generating a wide range of initiatives generically called participatory monitoring. By understanding the enormous potential contribution to biodiversity conservation and local development, research organizations, non-governmental conservation organizations and governments huddled and development to enhance and disseminate participatory monitoring initiatives worldwide.

Find out more about participation and the agenda of the seminar in the attached document.

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST): Zoological Nomenclature training course

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:00:00 +0300

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) is organizing a Zoological Nomenclature training course targeted at MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers, professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics. The course has a duration of one 5 days and will take place between 22-26 September 2014 at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, France.

Deadline for registration: 16 June 2014, extended until Friday 20 June 2014. To register and to learn more about the course visit the official webpage: http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/zoological-nomenclature-3

Course description:
Taxonomists need a common language worldwide. This is provided by the international codes of nomenclature. Although several codes exist, according to the organisms at stake, they all follow a similar mode of allocation of names to taxa (through "types") and of establishment of the valid name for a taxon (priority, first-reviser, usage). As biological nomenclature is rarely taught in academic formations, many taxonomists have difficulties mastering it. This training will provide an overview of the history and epistemology of biological nomenclature, and a discussion of the relationships between phylogeny, taxonomy and nomenclature. The zoological code will be presented in detail, the other codes (including the botanical one) more briefly. The recent problems and projects of nomenclature, including alternative systems, will be discussed.

Lecture topics:

• What is taxonomy? What is nomenclature? Name, taxon, nomenclatural rank, taxonomic category. Species and supraspecific taxa. The relationships between phylogeny, taxonomy and nomenclature
• History and epistemology of the international codes of nomenclature
• The international code of zoological nomenclature
• The other international codes (plants and fungi, bacteria, viruses, cultivated plants)
• The alternative nomenclatural systems

Seminar topics:

• Nomenclature of higher taxa in zoology
• The Phylocode and other phylogenetic nomenclatural systems
• Zoobank and electronic publications

Practical experiences will include: exercises in zoological nomenclature and transforming phylogenetic data into a taxonomy and a nomenclature.

Second IPBES Pan-European stakeholder meeting (PESC-2)

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 09:53:00 +0300

The Second IPBES Pan-European stakeholder meeting (PESC-2) will take place on 22 & 23 September 2014 in Basel, Switzerland. The meeting is organised by the Swiss Biodiversity Forum with the support of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), and in collaboration with other European IPBES Platforms from Germany, France, Belgium, and UK.

The meeting builds on the first IPBES Pan-European Stakeholder Consultation, which was successfully held in Leipzig in July 2013. A broad engagement of scientific experts, local knowledge holders, policy makers and NGOs will be crucial in making IPBES a success.

The meeting aims to:

• inform on the IPBES process, and how to participate in the current work programme (day 1)
• discuss and give input to the forthcoming IPBES Regional assessment of Europe and Central Asia (day 1 & 2)
• contribute to the mobilisation of experts and stakeholders across the Pan-European and Central Asian region (day 1 & 2)

Please find the official announcement and programme here.

Registration is now open, more info is available on the meeting website: http://www.biodiversity.ch/e/ipbes/PESC-2

Biodiversity today for tomorrow

Thu, 06 Feb 2014 17:55:00 +0200

The International BION conference 2014 "Biodiversity today for tomorrow" will take placefrom September 17^th to 19^th in Bonn, Germany.

It will be organized by the BION office and its network partners and the following subthemes have already been proposed:

1: Basic research in biodiversity
2: Monitoring, assessment, prediction – biodiversity in space and time
3: Biodiversity and Human Development
4: Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture / Bioeconomy
5: Ethical aspects of biodiversity
6: Societal (social, cultural, political) impact
7: Capacity Building
8: Interdisciplinary approaches

More information is available on the BION website: http://www.bion-bonn.org/de/de/bion-kongress-2014

Please, see conference programme for details and use the possibility for online registration.

DINA Technical Workshop - Alpha version of mobilization system

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 13:31:48 +0300

Target group: programmers, developers and system engineers. The workshop is also open to anybody who might be interested to learn more about the DINA-system.

Preliminary agenda:

Presentations from all DINA-partners
APIs, service oriented architecture and road map for distributed development guidelines and principles on how to build a module and join the DINA-system
Case studies
Delivery options: creating installations from hosted environment, virtual machines down to code.

Workshop Program.

There will be a SETF-meeting for DINA consortium members on the 15th of September.

Welcome to register for the workshop here:

DINA - Technical Workshop 16-18 September, Stockholm

The workshop is an activity within WP 1 Task 1.4

21st GBIF Governing Board meeting (GB21)

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 10:39:12 +0200

The 21^st GBIF Governing Board meeting (GB21) and related events will take place in New Delhi, India, in the week of 15-19 September 2014. More information and a link to the registration website will be available closer to the meeting dates.

GfOe Annual Meeting 2014

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 13:50:00 +0200

In 2014, the University of Hildesheim will host the 44th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The meeting will take place from September 8th to 12th, 2014 in Hildesheim, Germany. The guiding theme of the 44th Annual Meeting is "Integrating ecological knowledge into nature conservation and ecosystem management".

Along the lines of this guiding theme, we will stimulate scientific discussions on basic and applied ecological topics as well as on nature conservation and management. Special focus will be given to:

biodiversity research (e.g. diversity of genes, species and ecosystems; threats and conservation)
ecosystem functioning (e.g. ecosystem services, processes and functions, ecological dynamics)
species and populations (e.g. interactions, competition, adaption, survival, community assembly, past and current pattern)
ecosystem types (e.g. marine, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems; from polar to tropical regions, from lowlands to mountains)
global change effects (e.g. climate change, land use change, nutrient deposition, invasive species)
management (e.g. general and international approaches, restoration ecology, sustainable land management)
conservation approaches (e.g. linking ecological knowledge to nature conservation, environmental education, sustainability, community conservation, socio-ecological approaches, policy advice)

Call for Sessions started on December 18, 2013. The deadline for proposals has been extended until 28 February, 2013. Proposals addressing the guiding theme of the meeting as well as all other topics relevant to ecologists are welcomed.

Proposals should include the following information:

1. A session title

2. A short title (max 5 words or 50 characters)

3. The goal of the session (half A4 page)

4. Names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of chairs (up to three chairs per session)

5. List of potential speakers

(Please note: all potential speakers will have to register and pay registration fee)

If you would like to propose and chair a session, please submit your proposal to http://www.gfoe-2014.de/index.php?cat=call_sessions.

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) Course: Philosophy of Biological Systematics

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 13:52:00 +0300

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) is organizing a course in Philosophy of Biological Systematics targeted at MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers, professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics. The course has a duration of one week and will take place between 8-12 September 2014.

Approaching the subject from the perspective of the philosophical foundations of scientific inquiry, this course offers critical examinations of the principles required to judge the scientific merits of systematic/taxonomic procedures by way of the following topics:

• The goal of science
• The goal of biological systematics
• Causal relationships in systematics
• The nature of why-questions
• Three forms of reasoning: deduction, induction, abduction
• The uses of deduction, induction, and abduction in science
• Evidence and reasoning
• Fact, theory & hypothesis
• Theory & hypothesis testing
• Systematics involves abductive reasoning
• Inferences of systematics hypotheses, i.e. taxa
• Implications for ‘phylogenetic’ methods
• Causal explanations, not ‘trees’ or cladograms
• Parsimony, likelihood, Bayesianism: are they relevant to abductive reasoning, thus phylogenetic inference?
• The requirement of total evidence
• The errors of cladogram comparisons & character mapping
• Homology, homogeny & homoplasy
• Character coding
• Mechanics of hypothesis testing: implications for cladograms
• Character data cannot test phylogenetic hypotheses
• The nature evidential support
• The proper testing of phylogenetic hypotheses
• The myths of bootstrap, jack-knife & Bremer ‘support’
• Implications for nomenclature
• Defining biodiversity and conservation

Participants will be provided reprints covering the topics in the course, as well as a PDF file with all course slides (>800) and associated notes.

SUSTAIN-EU-ASEAN - Media Training

Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:42:00 +0300

In parallel with the ASEAN Scientific and Technology Week in Bogor, Indonesia, SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN is organizing several events, including the project Cluster Meetings and the first media training workshop, scheduled for the 21st of August.

The media workshop aims to help scientists and researchers to increase their impact outside the academic world by learning how to inform and influence policy makers and media representatives.

Through various practical exercises, the workshop will enhance participants’ written communication and presentation skills, as well as mastering the visual aspects of communicating with audiences through body language and posture.

The specific objectives of the training are to:

Analyze the objectives and priorities of the media;
Define a storyline and create persuasive and innovative messages;
Improve skills in presenting to large audiences;
Gain control of interviews with journalists using effective verbal skills;
Manage energy and project confidence in interviews with journalists.

SUSTAIN-EU-ASEAN cluster meting: organic and non-organic resourches & climate actions and cities

Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:38:00 +0300

SUSTAIN-EU-ASEAN organises the first bi-regional cluster meeting during which projects from both Southeast Asia and Europe can meet in person! This cluster meeting will take place in Bogor, Indonesia on 19 Aug 2014, in parallel with the ASEAN Science and Technology Week (ASTW). The two tematic clusters are:

Climate Action and Cities: this cluster brings together a number of projects dealing with the effects of climate change on urban space (also referring to issues like water management, etc.)
Organic and Non-Organic Resources: this cluster contains projects that deal with a range of resources and materials problems crucial for economic and social well-being in Southeast Asia

Purpose of the meeting/Goals:

Meet and get to know fellow projects working on similar topics of relevance to ASEAN
Discuss results and synergies, exchange on methodologies, plan for joint events, applications, publications, etc. or simply see what's going on in the other region in this topic.
Plan concrete next joint steps with projects in the cluster.
Benefit from SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN support (e.g. in your dissemination, exploitation and development activities) and inputs (on the funding environment)
Share your views on thematic gaps in current research - SUSTAIN is mandated to carry the message to the European Commission

Find more information in the attached brochure.

XI LifeWatch Stakeholders Board Meeting (Crete, Greece)

Sat, 31 May 2014 10:58:00 +0300

The next 11^th LifeWatch Stakeholders Board Meeting will be take place in Crete (Greece), on July 7-8, 2014. The meeting will be hosted by the HCMR Hellenic Centre for Marine Research.

GEOSS Workshop

Thu, 15 May 2014 17:41:00 +0300

Hands-on Workshop for registering and accessing COOPEUS Research Infrastructures through the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI)

The main goal is to foster the use of the GCI by getting data managers of the COOPEUS research infrastructure initiatives (RI) involved. The workshop will be carried out as hands-on exercise of registering resources of the RIs with the GCI and then demonstrating the benefits achieved thereby. This process will provide valuable feedback to the operators of the GCI and to our team.

The partners of the COOPEUS project are judging the GCI as a unique opportunity to integrate all available environmental information in a common platform.

Dates: July 1-2, 2014 (Start at 10 AM on July 1st and finish on July 2nd at 5 PM)
Venue: MARUM, Bremen, Germany

To Register for the workshop, please send an email with the following information to COOPEUS@marum.de:

1) Name and institution
2) Research infrastructures/ research infrastructure projects that you are involved with
3) potential involvement in specific GEOSS tasks?
4) contact information (business address, phone, email etc.)

- Only a limited number of attendees can be accommodated !

Here you can find a campus map of the University of Bremen (find MARUM on Leobnerstrasse on the left-hand side) and Information about travel and accommodation.

Open Science Conference - Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER)

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 10:57:00 +0200

The Integrated Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) Project will convene an Open Science Conference from 23-27 June 2014 in Bergen, Norway, with the goals of:

highlighting research results from the IMBER project and activities,
promoting integrated syntheses of IMBER-relevant research, and
developing a new global research agenda for marine biogeochemistry and ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

The list of contributed sessions and workshops is available here.

The Call for Abstracts is open! Deadline for abstract submission: 31 January 2014. Contributions are welcome from all marine research communities.

8th GEO European Projects Workshop (GEPW-8), Athens, Greece

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 10:05:00 +0200

The European Commission announces the 8th GEO European Projects Workshop (GEPW-8) which will take place in Athens, Greece, on 12 and 13 June, hosted by the Greek GEO Office - National Observatory of Athens and co-organized by the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences.

The eighth of the annual series of GEO European Projects Workshops is intended to bring all those interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS) from all over Europe together, in order to present their work and discuss how Europe can contribute to this international effort, especially in the wake of the launch of the new EU Framework Programme for Research, Horizon 2020, and renewal of the mandate of GEO for another 10 years through the endorsement of the 2014 Geneva Declaration.

Registration:

Registration is already open since 20th of March at the GEPW8 website.
Registration for attendance deadline: May 23, 2014
Registration of presentation deadline: April 30, 2014. Application form will be available at GEPW8 website.

For more information please visit the event's website at: www.gepw8.noa.gr

Adaptation Strategies to Global Environmental Change in the Mediterranean City (Athens, Greece)

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 09:48:00 +0200

The international Conference will explore the potential of earth observations and thrust climate information transfer from the science to the stakeholder application realm, in order to develop suitable adaptation measures at national and regional levels. It will identify best adaptation programs and approaches to global environmental change in Mediterranean-climate cities. It will enhance and strengthen European and international cooperation in the context of the activities within the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), and promote tools and options for adaptation strategies. The Conference will help local and regional authorities and stakeholders to gain insight on the role of EO-based services in adapting to climate chance impacts in urban hot- spot areas. The Conference will be followed for one and a half day by the 8th GEO European Project Workshop which will be the opportunity to present concrete examples of Earth Observation activities relevant to adaptation strategies.

Information and registration: www.mariolopoulosfoundation.gr/medcity2014

pro-iBiosphere Final Event in Meise (Brussels) - June 10-12, 2014

Thu, 27 Mar 2014 16:59:00 +0200

Agentschap Plententuin Meise (Botanic Garden Meise), Bouchout Castle – Meise (Brussels), Belgium

The pro-iBiosphere project supported by the European Commission (DG CONNECT) through its FP7 research funding programme has the pleasure to invite you to join its Final Event.

The project has the vision of implementing an Open Knowledge Biodiversity Management System (OBKMS), i.e. an integration platform that will allow to produce Biotas (i.e. Floras, Faunas, Mycotas and other revisionary taxonomic literature) of the future in a flexible semantically-driven online environment.

During its two year duration, pro-iBiosphere contributed to making fundamental biodiversity data digital, open and re-usable. The achievements of the project will be presented in a series of activities (Event Flyer) detailed below that will take place from Tuesday the 10^th to Thursday the 12^th of June 2014 at the Bouchout Castle (Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium).

Tuesday June 10 (PM)

Workshop on Model Evaluation

Wednesday June 11 (all day)

Demonstrations on pro-iBiosphere pilots

Demonstrations on outcomes of pro-iBiosphere Data Enrichment Hackathon

Workshop on Biodiversity Catalogue

Training on WikiMedia

Poster session

Thursday June 12 (all day)

Final Conference

Networking Cocktail

For more information on the Final Event (agenda, logistics,…), visit the dedicated wiki page.

Registration is free of charge but compulsory due to room capacity constraints. You can register by filling out the online registration form at http://tiny.cc/pib-final-event.

In case you are interested in giving a presentation during the Final Event activities or in submitting a poster in the poster session, please contact us at final-event@pro-ibiosphere.eu

The 9th International Conference on Open Repositories and DataONE workshop

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 12:22:00 +0300

The 9th International Conference on Open Repositories will be held from 9 to 13 June, 2014 in Helsinki, Finland. It is the leading international conference in its field, and the attendance is likely to be around 400, with participants from all around the world. The main theme of the conference is "Towards Repository Ecosystems".

DataONE will host an all-day workshop at the conference on Monday, 9 June.

The full conference program is likely to published in late April, 2014, but there is a draft version of the schedule available.

Conference registration has been open since February 14, 2014. There are also sponsorship opportunities available.

The conference will be hosted by University of Helsinki‘s twin libraries: Helsinki University Library and the National Library of Finland. You can contact the organizers by e-mail: or-2014[at]helsinki.fi.

For more information and to register, please visit the conference wensite:http://or2014.helsinki.fi/

Satellite navigation - Workshop: EGNSS research and technology development

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 15:45:00 +0300

Place: Brussels (Belgium)

The workshop on European Global Satellite System (GNSS) Research and Technology Development (RTD) will be organised by the European Commission in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European GNSS Agency (GSA).

This event is being held to consult stakeholders of the European GNSS community on RTD areas of potential interest to be funded under Horizon 2020 in the period 2015-2020.

The scope includes Galileo/ EGNOS infrastructure, mission and services R&D, GNSS signals, and basic GNSS RTD.

Please note that receiver and applications R&D will not be covered in this workshop

The workshop will consist of six topical sessions, during which stakeholders from industry, SMEs, academia, and technology institutes are solicited to discuss and define important lines of GNSS research.

Symposium: Remote Sensing for Conservation - ZSL 2014

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 15:06:00 +0300

The ZSL symposium on Remote Sensing for Conservation will take place on the 22nd and 23rd of May 2014 at ZSL in London. This symposium will highlight integrative approaches for an improved ecological understanding of the mechanisms shaping current changes in biodiversity patterns, while triggering new research directions in remote sensing science and the development of new remote sensing products.

Digital Conservation Conference 2014 (University of Aberdeen, UK)

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 18:26:00 +0200

Digital applications in nature conservation have rapidly gained prominence and now span a range of areas, including:

Digital public engagement, learning, citizen science, crowd-sourcing
e-learning and e-gaming
Novel monitoring tools
Database connectivity and access
Online decision-making support systems

Building on the optimistic view that digital technology has a huge potential to aid nature conservation, this conference will also critically address the multidisciplinary dimensions of the impacts of digital applications on this societally important field.

Digital Conservation seeks to establish a new research agenda, by fostering the exchange of ideas, insights and experiences between scientists and practitioners in a field that will increasingly shape human interactions with nature.

Abstract submission for talk, poster, or demo DEADLINE: 24^th March 2014

Event Flyer

First Group on Earth Observations GEO Appathon 2014

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 14:53:00 +0300

The first Group on Earth Observations GEO Appathon 2014, an exciting new worldwide data science competition, is announced to be be launched on 7 May 2014.

he GEO Appathon is a global applications (App) development competition that aims to develop new, exciting and - most importantly - useful Apps using Earth observation data from the open and expansive Earth Observation data sets in the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI). See www.geoportal.org

The Appathon kicks off on 7 May 2014 and runs until 31 August 2014. Participation is open to any non-commercial entity, individual or team from any background in any country. Apps can be created for any of the main operating systems, and can be designed for any type of portable device. All Apps will be judged and the top three winners will receive a cash prize and a year-long GEO network endorsement and publicity for the App.

Visit our GEO Appathon website (www.geoappathon.org) for more rules, details of how to register and information about how you can help us unleash the power of Earth observation data.

For further questions, please do not hesitate to email Dan Williams at: dan@geoappathon.org

6th GBIF European Nodes Meeting

Fri, 14 Mar 2014 10:54:00 +0200

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is holding its 6th GBIF Eropean Nodes Meeting, organized by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform. The event will take place in Brussels, 8-10 April 2014.

GBIF is an international open data infrastructure, funded by governments.It allows anyone, anywhere to access data about all types of life on Earth, shared across national boundaries via the Internet.

By encouraging and helping institutions to publish data according to common standards, GBIF enables research not possible before, and informs better decisions to conserve and sustainably use the biological resources of the planet.

More information is available on the event website.

First EU BON Training Event

Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:07:00 +0200

The First EU BON Training Event will be held on April 3rd 2014, following the General Meeting of EU BON in Crete. Information regarding logistics (location, accommodation) can be found here: http://www.symposium.eubon.eu/general-meeting-2014.

The First EU BON Training Event aims to provide a basic understanding and shared vocabulary on Information architecture and Data standards used by EU BON. It will provide a forum for discussion, amongst experts from EU BON and from related Networks of Biodiversity Information.

Topics that will be covered:

Integrating biodiversity networks through Software Oriented Architecture - Antonio Garcia, CSIC
Data standards: publishing sample-based data- Eamonn O Tuama, GBIF
Information architecture - GEOSS perspective – Lorenzo Bigagli
Data sharing and repositories in GBIF network - Tim Robertson
Data flow and modelling in virtual laboratory - Hannu Saarenmaa, BioVeL
Data sharing and repositories in DataONE – Bruce E. Wilson

More information about the training event is available at: http://eubon.cybertaxonomy.africamuseum.be/page/eu-bon_training_events

2nd International Conference on Research Infrastructures

Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:39:00 +0300

The 2^nd International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI 2014) will take place from 2-4 April 2014 in Athens, Greece.ICRI 2014 will be held under the auspices of the forthcoming Greek Presidency of the European Union, co-organised and supported by the European Commission. Read more here

BiodiversityKnowledge at the EU parliament "Towards a consolidated Network of Knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe"

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 13:27:00 +0300

On the 1st of April, between 9:30 and 16:30, the BiodiversityKnowledge project organises a conference where outcomes will be presented and widely discussed with policy makers, science and other stakeholders at the European parliament in Brussels. As final result, BiodiversityKnowledge will present a stakeholder’s document outlining a recommended design on how such a Network of Knowledge could operate and produce added value.

EU BON will be also presented at the confernce as one of the knowledge providers of the Network of Knowledge.

To counteract biodiversity loss, efforts have considerably increased over the past years to strengthen the science-policy-society interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services. There is indeed an active landscape of projects, institutions, organisations and individuals in Europe involved in this interface, all aiming to improve the knowledge flow so that decisions at different policy levels (from European, to national and local levels) are based on the best available knowledge.

With the 7th Environmental Action Programme and the start of Horizon2020 and its focus on innovative solutions for society, the need for more concerted activities in this context become even more important.

In this context, BiodiversityKnowledge (FP7 KNEU), an EU-funded coordination action has been set up to help to map, mobilise and organise this landscape focusing on the knowledge holders’ community. For this the project has been developing and testing a prototype Network of Knowledge since 2011 with more than 300 active participations of representatives of the biodiversity and ecosystems services knowledge community. Stakeholders involved ranged from practitioners and researchers to policy-makers.

Please find the conference agenda attached below.

EU BON General Meeting

Fri, 07 Feb 2014 15:37:00 +0200

The EU BON General Meeting will take place between 30 March and 3 April 2014 at the HCMR in Gournes Pediados, Crete. The last day of the meeting 3 April 2014 will be devoted to a training Workshop, potentially covering issues on EBVs (Essential Biodiversity Variables), Modelling, Data standards, Data flow etc.

Visit our online registration platform to find information about the programme, venue, accommodation, training workshop etc

SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN networking and cluster session in the EU

Thu, 06 Mar 2014 15:05:00 +0200

After a successful networking session in Bangkok, Thailand the SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN project is organising another networking session for interested institutions and research projects in Brussels, Belgium. The event will take place on 28 March 2014 in Brussels, Belgium.This meeting is helpful if you

want to get to know and network with fellow environment research projects (in the areas of climate change, resource efficiency and raw materials) with an ASEAN focus and/or relevant research results for the region
want to identify and harness synergies with other projects (possible future cooperation; sharing of results and work, etc.)
want to get in touch with the SUSTAIN team, communicating what kind of support your research efforts would benefit from

The SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN project generally has to offer

networking and project twinning support: find and coordinate with similar projects!
R&D services for results take-up: get support in approaching potential investors!
communication and exposure support: make your results visible for potential users!

Get in touch here, if you are interested in joining the meeting. The pre-meeting agenda is available as an attachment below,

Read more about the event on the SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN website.

Workshop "iMarine data platform for collaborations"

Fri, 07 Feb 2014 09:58:00 +0200

A key goal of the iMarine initiative is to support stakeholders in a sustainable use of the marine ecosystem.

On 7th March 2014, iMarine is organizing an interactive workshop "iMarine data platform for collaborations" to showcase how its powerful data infrastructure is capable of addressing the challenges of the Ecosystem Approach.

The workshop also offers important opportunities to work together on developing plans related to iMarine sustainability, such as the public partnership model concept, as well as engage new potential users and partners for the future.

The workshop is co-located with the Fishery Dependent Information conference and will take place at Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) headquarters, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy.

Participation is free of charge but subject to registration.

Seminar ‘Use of biodiversity in research according to the upcoming EU regulation’

Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:14:00 +0200

On Tuesday March 4, 2014 at the Science Park De Uithof in Utrecht a seminar will address the changing legal situation in the use of living material (genetic resources) for scientific research. This change may affect ongoing and new research carried out in universities and related research institutes.

In many universities research is carried out using plants or animals, or derivatives thereof. Now, context is changing after the Nagoya Protocol was agreed upon in 2010, and the EU has worked towards regulation of the new requirements. These are to become effective when the Nagoya Protocol comes into force, which is expected to happen after mid-2014. Shortly afterwards, the EU regulation will also become effective. The Council, European Parliament and the European Commission have come to an informal agreement that will shortly be finalised.

The seminar Use of biodiversity in research according to the upcoming EU regulation aims to introduce the new legislation to the scientific community. The seminar is of relevance to University boards and their legal departments, as well as scientists and managers of collections.

For more details and to apply please see here

8th Annual Meeting of the Specialist Group for Macroecology

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 11:20:00 +0200

Integrating mechanisms into macroecology

8^th Annual Meeting of the Specialist Group for Macroecology of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (GfÖ)

Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Institute of Biology, Department Geobotany & Botanical Garden, Am Kirchtor 1, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany

Linking processes and mechanistic approaches (e.g., from physiology, experimental ecology, demography, and evolution) with macroecological approaches, scales, and methods has long been discussed among macroecologists. Still, only few steps toward implementing such links have been taken, yet. With the 8th Annual Meeting of the Specialist Group for Macroecology of the GfÖ, we want to offer a forum for presenting and discussing both tested approaches and new ideas to make these links. Additionally, in order to move beyond discussion, we invite all participants to join the conference workshop on the 2nd day. Here, we plan to intensively discuss gaps in existing approaches and possible ways for bridging these gaps in several discussion groups and to take first steps towards publishing the summarized workshop results.

http://www.macroecology.org/

FishBase and Fish Taxonomy Training Course 2014

Fri, 11 Oct 2013 10:23:38 +0300

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren (Belgium) is part of the FishBase Consortium and responsible for the information on the fresh- and brackish water fishes of Africa. Through an agreement with the Belgian Development Cooperation and as part of the FishBase programme, the RMCA has five grants available for a 3-month training programme in the use of FishBase and the taxonomy of African fishes.

The training includes three subsets:

A detailed explanation of FishBase in all its aspects;
A training in the taxonomy of African fishes; and
A case study based on data from FishBase or on taxa for which taxonomic problems have been encountered.

The main focus of the training is on fish biodiversity data and their integration into FishBase, and on how to use and contribute data to FishBase. The context of these contributions may vary and can also include the knowledge on common names, fish ecology, fisheries statistics, aquaculture and many other areas of fish biology.

After the training, the participants should be able to make their own contribution to fish biology and continue to work on FishBase. They are encouraged to teach their newly apprehended skills to new/local users, to help in completing the database and keeping it up to date, and to spread the use of FishBase as a source of information and a fisheries tool.

This course has been offered annually since 2005 and is held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Leuvensesteenweg 13, B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium).

To apply for traineeship and for more information, go to:
http://www.africamuseum.be/research/collaborations/training/group?set_language=en&cl=en

Please note that for 2014, this course will be given in French only.

Kick-off meeting of WPs 6 and 7

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:51:00 +0200

• to get to know each other better within tasks and between depending tasks,
• to advance on the understanding of the task and the work foreseen in the task,
• to explore some topics which could serve as guidance for work foreseen in tasks.

2nd LifeWatch e-Infrastructure Construction Operational Meeting ICT CORE and distributed construction operations, Granada, Spain

Sat, 21 Dec 2013 10:17:00 +0200

The 2nd LifeWatch e-Infrastructure meeting will take part on 3 - 4 February 2014 in Granada, Spain.

During the two days of the meeting " e-Infrastructure Construction Operational Meeting ICT CORE and distributed construction operations" Eu BON will be presented by Christoph Häuser who will talk on "The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and The Group on Earth Observations / Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON): Synergies with LifeWatch". Hannu Saarenmaa will also chair the first Working Session: LifeWatch ICT requirements.

2014 SCIENCE POLICY SYMPOSIUM to support the implementation of the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive

Thu, 10 Oct 2013 09:36:00 +0300

The 2014 SCIENCE POLICY SYMPOSIUM to support the implementation of the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive will be held between 29-30 Jan 2014 in the Museum of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Brussels. The symposium is jointly organised by the EU FP7 funded projects BioFresh and REFRESH.

Numerous EU biodiversity and water related policies have been designed to protect freshwater ecosystems and ensure their sustainable use. However, major challenges still persist in the implementation of these policies. Freshwater ecosystems support 10% of all animal species on Earth and provide a diverse array of functions and services that contribute to human well-being. In recent decades global freshwater biodiversity has declined at a greater rate compared to terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

The Science Policy Symposium for Freshwater Life is organised with the aim of bringing together policy makers and stakeholders from the water, energy and conservation sector, NGOs, the scientific community and selected experts to discuss challenges to implementing the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive.

ASEAN-EU STI Days with EU BON participation

Thu, 09 Jan 2014 18:07:00 +0200

he ASEAN-EU Science, Technology and Innovation Days serve as a visible forum for cooperation activities between the two regions in the field of STI. The event addresses researchers from most thematic areas – with a focus on the societal challenges with relevance to both regions – as well policy makers, research conducting companies and innovation managers. It takes place annually, alternating between an ASEAN and a European country. High-level policy makers as well as many research projects and companies seize the chance to network, discuss, exchange and inform themselves.

EU BON is also going to hold a workshop during the conference called "Integration of biodiversity data recording and information management systems for environmental sustainability: a call for EU-ASEAN collaboration" (22nd January). The agenda of this workshop (incl. invited speakers) ican also be found here: http://www.stidays.net/?page_id=510

Biodiversity Day at GEO-X "From observation to decision"

Wed, 11 Dec 2013 18:35:00 +0200

Tue, 14th Jan 2014, 9:00-16:45, GEO-X Plenary, CICG Room 2 (entrance floor), Geneva

The Swiss Government, with the help of the Swiss Biodiversity Forum, is organizing this Biodiversity Special Event in the frame of the 10th GEO Plenary meeting and Ministerial Summit in Geneva, to raise awareness of the importance of the biodiversity and ecosystem services activities in GEO (Global Earth Observation).

The programme offers talks on Biodiversity Observation Networks at all scales, on how to use spatial data for ecosystem assessments, and provides case studies on how to connect different user needs with biodiversity and ecosystem observations. Moreover, there will be a poster presentation of different biodiversity observation projects in Switzerland in the Swiss Pavillon, and a panel discussion on "How to improve biodiversity information and use it for decision making". (see the attached programme).

The event is open to the public. Registration is free of charge. Lunch is only provided to registered participants.

Please register until the 10th of January 2014 at: http://www.biodiversity.ch/e/events/geo-x/

GEO-X and 2014 Ministerial Summit

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 17:59:00 +0300

The GEO-X and GEO 2014 Ministerial Summit, as well as all the associated meeting and events will take place at the International Conference Center in Geneva – CICG, from 13 to 17 January 2014.

The Exhibition represents a key component of a successful week and Summit, providing tangible examples of GEO achievements, and informed decision-making.

This First Announcement is intended to provide basic information to potential exhibitors and to collect expressions of interest in participating at the GEO 2014 Summit Exhibition.

Second IPBES plenary

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:56:00 +0300

The second session of the IPBES plenary (IPBES-2) is now assigned to be held in Antalya, Turkey from 9 to 14 December 2013, following the decision of the IPBES Bureau.

As part of the current intersessional process, various draft documents prepared by the Bureau and Multidisciplinary Expert Panel will be available online for review at: www.ipbes.net/intersessional-process. These includes the draft IPBES work programme, stakeholder engagement strategy, guidance on the development of strategic partnerships, and procedures for the preparation of IPBES deliverables. In addition, various regional consultations in preparation for IPBES-2 are also under preparation. Further details can be found at www.ipbes.net/related-events.

The deadline for registration is August 19th, and it should be noted that it will not be possible for any non-government observers who were not present at IPBES-1 to register to participate in IPBES-2 after this date.

Details of the online registration process can be found at www.ipbes.net/plenary/registration-ipbes-2

Building Biodiversity Workflows with Taverna (Manchester, UK)

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 11:39:00 +0300

The course is a two-day hands-on training event. The course will accommodate 10-15 researchers. The program consists of introductory lectures, practical computer work, and discussions. Researchers will be contacted upon admission in order to consider their own research objectives for the course. more ...

E-seminar: Data Exchange for Biodiversity Conservation in Freshwater Ecosystems: Introducing the BioFresh Platform and Data Portal

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 14:33:00 +0200

The FP7 projects BioFresh and WaterDiss2.0 are pleased to announce the E-seminar "Data Exchange for Biodiversity Conservation in Freshwater Ecosystems: Introducing the BioFresh Platform and Data Portal". The E-seminar will take place on Thursday, November 28 from 14:00 to 15:00 CET.

It will be hosted on the seminar website (http://waterdiss.eu/eseminar-biofresh) where a link will be available for it.

The E-seminar will introduce the audience to the usage of the BioFresh Platform and Data Portal, in order to ensure a better understanding of the different components. Aaike De Wever, Science Officer of BioFresh, will explain which data and information are integrated and for which contributions BioFresh is looking. Participants are encouraged to join in for a live discussion via "Citrix go to Webinar".

If you want to participate in the e-seminar, you only need to send an email to evelyn.lukat@ecologic.eu. You will receive further information via mail. If you decide on participating later, you can also simply join the seminar by following the link provided on November 28^th on this website.

A few important notes:

The e-seminar will be conducted in English
The video and the questions asked during the session will be available on the websites of the BioFresh data portal and this website.

Technical details on the E-seminar:

When clicking on the link, the application Citrix Go To Webinar will be downloaded. Nothing will be installed on your computer. However, please make sure that your computer is able to run java applications.
Please make sure that the sound system on your computer works. If your sound system does not work properly, you can also dial in via phone. Please check the dial-in number for your country on this website by November 28^th.

Training Workshop for ENM studies (Cardiff University, UK)

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 11:31:00 +0300

Introduction to using BioVeL workflows for taxonomic refinement, biogeographic analysis, and species distribution modelling

The training workshop will teach the attendees in using the informatic tools and services developed by the BioVeL project to address research topics such as historical analyses, invasive species distribution modelling, endangered species distribution modelling, and dynamic modelling of ecologically related species. In particular, there will be introductions to the BioVeL e-infrastructure, Taxonomic data cleaning, Taxonomic name resolution and synonym expansion, Ecological niche modelling, model testing, statistical analysis of GIS data, invasive and endangered species distribution modelling, historical comparison biodiversity from museum collections. more ...

Dissemination meeting with MsMonina, Brussles

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 13:30:00 +0200

Dissemination meeting with MsMonina, Brussles (26 November 2013)

EnvEurope and LTER-Europe conference (Rome, Italy)

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 15:06:00 +0300

This is the final conference of the LIFE+ EnvEurope project, together with the annual LTER-Europe conference.

In building a site network for biodiversity and ecosystem research since 2004, LTER-Europe has identified a set of requirements in the field of cross-site workflows, network design, tools for information management, harmonization and standardization. The LIFE+ project EnvEurope has successfully tackled these requirements over the past 4 years. The products of EnvEurope and the approaching Horizon 2020 are the entry point for the next phase in designing the European research infrastructure landscape in the field of biodiversity and ecosystem research.

Please see the link for more information: http://www.lter-europe.net/events/lter-events/enveurope-lter-europe%20conf

WP4 kick-off meeting

Thu, 05 Sep 2013 13:40:18 +0300

The EU BON WP4 kick-off meeting will take place on 25-27 November 2013, in Solsona, Spain.

EU BON – Biofresh Meeting

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 11:02:00 +0200

The EU BON – Biofresh Meeting will take place on November 25 2013 at the Leibniz Association Headquarter in Berlin, Germany. EU BON and Biofresh participants will present both projects and their key products, followed by discussion-rounds: Synergies and linkages between BioFresh-EU BON.

MTSR 2013 : 7th Metadata and Semantics Research Conference

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:53:00 +0300

Continuing the successful mission of previous MTSR Conferences (MTSR'05, MTSR'07, MTSR'09, MTSR'10, MTSR'11 and MTSR’12), the seventh International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research (MTSR'13) aims to bring together scholars and practitioners that share a common interest in the interdisciplinary field of metadata, linked data and ontologies. Participants will share novel knowledge and best practice in the implementation of these semantic technologies across diverse types of Information Environments and applications. These include Cultural Informatics; Open Access Repositories & Digital Libraries; E-learning applications; Search Engine Optimisation & Information Retrieval; Research Information Systems and Infrastructures; e-Science and e-Social Science applications; Agriculture, Food and Environment; Bio-Health & Medical Information Systems.

Final BIO_SOS meeting in Brussels

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 13:32:00 +0200

Final BIO_SOS meeting in Brussels (18-19 November 2013)

ICT 2013 - Create, Connect, Grow

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:18:00 +0300

The "ICT 2013 – Create, Connect, Grow" will take place on 6-8 November, 2013 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The event will bring together more than 4000 researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, industry representatives, young people and politicians. The focus of ICT 2013 will be placed on Horizon 2020 - the EU's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation for 2014-2020. The event will feature top ICT professionals from industry, academia, research, participating in discussions built around 3 thematic plenaries: ICT for Excellent science; ICT for Industrial Leadership; and ICT for Societal challenges. Experts will present details on how to participate in Horizon 2020. A special focus will be placed on Digital Futures - a journey into 2050's futures and policy challenges.

Apart from the conference the ICT 2013 will also feature an exhibition as a unique opportunity for projects and companies to showcase their research, ICT products and innovative creations. In total, 185 projects will showcase the latest findings in advanced research, technologies, new systems, innovation in services & business and ICT products just coming to market.

In addition networking sessions and investment forum are also planned within the event. ICT 2013 is also organizing activities for students and young researchers

For more information and to register visit: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ict-2013

2013 TDWG Annual Conference

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:07:00 +0200

Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) will hold its annual conference in Florence, Italy on October 28 – November 1. it will be held at the Grand Hotel Mediterraneo but attendees will be free to choose from any of the accommodations in the area, many within a short distance. Registration details will be provided early in 2013.

CBD SBSTTA 17

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:26:00 +0200

At its seventeenth meeting, the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is expected to address, among others, issues related to marine and coastal biodiversity, biodiversity and climate change, and collaboration with IPBES.
Event web page: http://www.cbd.int/meetings/

Biodiversity Knowledge 2nd Conference

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:20:00 +0200

The FP7 Coordination action BiodiversityKnowledge on "designing a network of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services to inform decision-making in Europe" is organizing its second international conference on September 24th to 26th in Berlin.
The objective of this second conference is to discuss and finalize the recommended design of a future Network of Knowledge (NoK) on biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe.
Considering the importance of this future Network of Knowledge, representatives of the biodiversity and ecosystem service knowledge community - from practitioners, researchers to policy makers - are warmly invited to actively participate in this conference and to contribute to the design process of a European Network of Knowledge during 2013.
Event web page: Biodiversity Knowledge 2nd Conference

Conference: Adapting to Global Change in the Mediterranean hotspot - AGCM

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:24:00 +0300

The Conference "Adapting to Global Change in the Mediterranean hotspot - AGCM" will be held in Seville, Spain on 18-20 September 2013. The conference is organised by Donana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC) within the FP7 funded EcoGenes project. Its main purpose is to explore and gather a variety of independent research threads to reveal overall patterns on how the world around us is changing and the many ways different organisms respond to that change.

By bringing together researchers who investigate various aspects of this global change and the way individuals, populations and communities respond to it, and who employ a wide variety of experimental and theoretical tools, the conference aims at hope to make intellectual progress on particular issues and move research in the area forward.

The specific themes that will be addressed are:

Phenotypic responses to global change
Breakdown of species boundaries
Emergent diseases in changing environments
Responses to past global change
Adaptation and speciation in response to changing environments
Biological invasions: from species adaptation to ecosystem responses
Monitoring ecosystems responses
Consequences of global change in biotic interactions
Population responses to global change

AGCM is by invitation only regarding speakers; however participants are invited to submit a proposal for posters.

Poster submission deadline: 17 July 2013
Registration Deadline: 6 September 2013

For more information visit the AGCM website: http://ebdecogenes.ebd.csic.es

Open Knowledge Conference 2013

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:52:45 +0200

The Open Knowledge Foundation is pleased to announce that the 2013 Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) will take place in Geneva, Switzerland on 17th-18th September.
The world’s leading open data and open knowledge event, OKCon is the latest in an annual series run since 2005. Last year’s installment in Helsinki had more than 1000 participants from over 50 countries and was the largest event of its kind to date.
Find out more about the conference here.
Registration and tickets are already available here.

20th International Conference of Environmental Indicators

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:02:00 +0200

Indicators in Environmental Monitoring: Standardization, Assessment and Policy
16 September - 19 September 2013, Trier University, Campus II, Trier, Germany
The high diversity of methods and practices currently used to collect and evaluate environmental data reduces significantly comparisons of results and observations. This international conference of Environmental Indicators will contribute to a harmonization of standards to optimize diagnoses and to improve acceptance.
The use of indicators to monitor our environment and to inform and diagnose environmental hazards and their impacts remains a challenge. Standardization of these monitoring efforts is of great importance in order to get reliable data for an accurate assessment of the current state of the environment and to thus form the basis for policy. This international conference will bring together experts from government departments, consultancies, and academia to meet this challenge.

Further Information: http://www.icei2013.com/

43rd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:47:00 +0300

In 2013, the University of Potsdam will host the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The meeting (www.gfoe-2013.de) will take place from September 9 to 13, 2013 in Potsdam, Germany.

The guiding theme of the 43rd Annual Meeting is "Building bridges in ecology - linking systems, scales and disciplines".
Along the lines of this guiding theme, we will stimulate scientific discussions about all aspects in basic and applied ecological research contributing to better connect.

IALE 2013 European Congress - Changing European Landscapes: Landscape ecology, local to global

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:20:00 +0300

The IALE 2013 European Congress "Changing European Landscapes: Landscape ecology, local to global" will take place on 9-12 September 2013, in Manchester, UK. This major international event, organised by IALE UK and IALE Europe, will examine how and why European landscapes are changing and how landscape ecology can help us to plan for the future at local to global scales. It will consider local projects alongside international programmes and provide many opportunities for researchers, policy makers and practitioners to interact. The congress will have a European focus but we look forward to welcoming participants from around the world.

More information and how to register find here.

Biodiversity Informatics Horizons 2013

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 15:57:00 +0300

Biodiversity Informatics Horizons 2013 (BIH2013) is part of a continuing process that helps to structure and organise the biodiversity informatics community at the European level and beyond. BIH2013 will take place over 3 full days, from lunchtime on Tuesday 3rd September to lunchtime Friday 6th. The venue will be in Rome but is still awaiting final confirmation.

To respond to the challenges and priorities of the next decade in biodiversity and ecosystems research, structuring bottom-up and top-down interactions on informatics and cooperating across the community is now an essential activity. Cooperation avoids unnecessary duplication of activity. It helps to maximise and focus effort on building the information resources, tools and infrastructure the scientists and policymakers need. We all know the importance of this as we face environmental, societal and human health challenges on global scale. Science in support of policy to mitigate biodiversity loss due to climate and other man-made changes, to assure food security, and to combat invasive species (to give just a few examples) can only be achieved by full integration of the biodiversity research community through a commonly-shared, sustainable e-infrastructure across all sub-disciplines that reliably serves science and society alike. Hence, the need to coordinate.

Invited speakers will review challenging areas and promising technologies in biodiversity informatics, pathways to sustainable implementation and changing the community culture. A panel discussion with experts from regions of the world beyond Europe will explore opportunities for international cooperation that lead towards a sustainable global infrastructure. Demonstration and training activities, provided by some of the FP7 projects associated with the conference will allow delegates to see first-hand some of the new and exciting infrastructure building blocks that will come together to deliver the LifeWatch vision.

To read more and register for the conference, please click here.

For early registration conference fee, please register before 31 July.

11th INTECOL Congress 2013

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:32:00 +0200

From 18-23 August 2013, the 11th INTECOL Congress, Ecology: Into the next 100 years will be held in London as part of the centenary celebrations of the British Ecological Society.The theme of the Congress is advancing ecology and making it count, and will present world class ecological science that will truly move the science forward.
Event web site: http://www.intecol2013.org/

International Congress for Conservation Biology 2013

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:28:00 +0200

The biennial International Congress for Conservation Biology is recognized as the most important global meeting for conservation professionals and students. The congress features a dynamic scientific program with more than 100 cutting edge symposia, workshops, posters, and focus groups; countless networking opportunities, fantastic field trips, and world-renowned speakers.
The 26th ICCB takes place in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Chesapeake Bay is the world's most productive estuary and the region is rich in cultural and historical heritage and conservation challenges and success stories.
Event web page: ICCB 2013

PROBING VEGETATION CONFERENCE - FROM PAST TO FUTURE

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:30:00 +0200

SPOT-VEGETATION turns 15 in May 2013!
After a long and successful career as Europe's first truly operational system for global monitoring of vegetation, the mission is now nearing the end of its life cycle.
But the story continues! The role of SPOT-VEGETATION will be taken over by ESA's technologically advanced PROBA-V mission from the summer of 2013 onwards.
To celebrate with us the operational and scientific achievements of SPOT-VEGETATION and to look forward to the intriguing perspectives that will offered to the user's community by PROBA-V, BELSPO and VITO are delighted to invite you to the conference "PROBING VEGETATION" in Antwerp.

GI_Forum 2013

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:07:00 +0300

The GI_Forum 2013 will take place on 02-05 July, in Salzburg, Austria. The GI_Forum 2013 will aim at communicating innovative research and learning in Geographic Information Science with focus on hardware, software, orgware and brainware for the GISociety, and their inter-relationships. The keynote speakers this year will be Sarah Elwood, Josef Strobl, Geoff Zeiss, Francis Harvey, Xavier Lopez and Carmel Mbizvo.

For more information please follow the link: http://www.gi-forum.org/, or see the attached programme of the event.

The iEvoBio Meeting: intersection of biology, software, and mathematics

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:27:49 +0200

The iEvoBio Meeting, 2013, will take place in Snowbird, Utah between June 25-26, in conjunction with Evolution 2013. It aims to bring together biologists working in evolution, systematics and biodiversity, with software developers, and mathematicians.
The keynote speakers for iEvoBio 2013 will be Dr. Heather Piwowar and Dr. Holly Bik.
Submissions for participation in the conference are now open. There are three ways to participate:
- Lightning Talk: present for 5 min on a method, idea, or software product about bioinformatics.
- Software Bazaar: Demo your open-source software product.
- Birds of a Feather: Suggest or participate in an informal group of folks with a common interest. Suggestions will be considered both before and during the meeting.

Find out the whole Program here.
More details about registration can be found here.

First EU BON Stakeholder Round Table - Requirements for Policy

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 13:57:00 +0200

In order that EU BON meets the demands of the main political stakeholders in the EU, in this round table an overview of the project will be given and first results will be shown summarized in the first show case which is dealing with datasets in relation to political targets and indicators. In addition, the idea how the science–policy/management interface can function for example via the planned European Biodiversity Portal will be presented and the requirements for policy (political administration) discussed.

Results of this first stakeholder round table will be documented and passed back to the project in order to increase its relevance.

Invitation to the first meeting of the CBMP Freshwater Steering Group

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:33:00 +0300

Тhe first meeting of the Freshwater Steering Group to be held in Uppsala, Sweden, on 10–12 June, 2013. The meeting is kindly supported by the Swedish EPA.

Please register for the workshop by sending an e-mail to Willem.Goedkoop@slu.se no later than 13 May.

Big data from Space

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 10:15:00 +0200

The European Space Agency in Frascati is organising a "Big data from Space" event to address the barriers that hamper an effective use of large volumes of Earth observation data. The event will focus on issues associated with the organisation and delivery of large volumes of contemporary and historical Earth observations, either space-based or from ground (including ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, aerial sensory technologies, wireless sensor networks).

Natural History Museum Symposium, London, 3-4 June, 2013: Tropical biodiversity in the 21st century

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:40:00 +0300

A conference marking the start of the Natural History Museum’s Biodiversity Initiative has been announced to take place on 3-4 June, 2013 in the NHM, London. A workshop of the Genomic Observatories Network will be also hosted during the conference

The conference will focus on how inter-disciplinary, genomic approaches can be developed to accelerate the study of biodiversity and function of tropical ecosystems.

More information on the conference can be found here.

EU BON 1st Informatics Workshop

Sat, 04 May 2013 10:27:03 +0300

The first EU BON Informatics Workshop will take place in Trondheim, Norway from 29 to 31 May 2013. The event aims at discussing the data standards and informatics architecture that will be followed by the EU BON project. The workshop will also focus on highlighting linkages to GEOSS Common Infrastructure and the GEO BON. Among the agenda on the list are also presentation of the plans and operations of the EU BON Helpdesk as well as the first assembly of the global Informatics Task Force of EU BON. The workshop is by invitation only. The agenda and travel details have been updated on 2 May 2013, see the below attachment.

This year’s Trondheim Conference: Ecology and Economy for a Sustainable Society

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 09:56:00 +0200

Ecology and Economy for a Sustainable Society
This year’s Trondheim Conference on Biodiversity has been organized to be held from May 27 until May 31, 2013 in Trondheim, Norway. The conference will go under the "Ecology and Economy for a Sustainable Society" slogan and will be aimed at exploring how to cut development pathways towards a sustainable society by aligning policy, business, economy and ecology across borders, scales and systems.
Since the first Trondheim Conference held in 1993, the world population has grown by 25 %, the total GDP by 75 % and world trade has tripled. Despite positive achievements, loss of biodiversity along with global warming is undermining human wellbeing, especially that of the poor and vulnerable. Those issues and finding suitable solution will be on the main agenda of the 2013 Trondheim Conference.

Participation and registration
Participation in the conference is by invitation only. Each country has been invited to send two experts, one from each field of biodiversity and economy/planning. Invitees may register for the conference on the Participation and registration page.

10th ESWC 2013 - Semantics and Big Data

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:36:00 +0200

The ESWC 2013 takes place from May 26th, 2013 to May 30th, 2013 in Montpellier, France.
The ESWC is a major venue for discussing the latest scientific results and technology innovations around semantic technologies. Building on its past success, ESWC is seeking to broaden its focus to span other relevant research areas in which Web semantics plays an important role.
Event web site: ESWC 2013

3^rd meeting pro-iBiosphere

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:44:00 +0200

Pro-iBiosphere meeting 3 will be held from 20 to 24 May 2013 in Berlin. It will consist of three workshops on: 1) Coordination and routes for cooperation across organizations, projects and e-infrastructures 2) Measuring and constraining the costs of delivering services 3) Stakeholder requirements Second Management committee meeting and Advisory Board meetings will be held from 23-24 of May 2013. More information can be found at: http://wiki.pro-ibiosphere.eu/wiki/Workshops_Berlin,_May_2013

iMarine Invitation-only Workshop - 14th & 15th May 2013

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:37:00 +0300

iMarine e-Infrastructure for data driven decision making and research
iMarine is organising an invitation-only workshop to discuss data driven decision making and research on 14th & 15th May 2013 at DG Connect, Avenue de Beaulieu 33 (BU33), Room 0/54, Brussels, Belgium.
The goal of iMarine is to facilitate policy makers in addressing the global challenges impacting on the marine ecosystem, the fisheries sector, local economies and communities and to demonstrate that science based policy making can benefit from a large and distributed e-Infrastructure for cross-disciplinary data collection, harmonization and analysis necessary for the management and conservation of marine living resources.

OpenUp! 2nd annual meeting

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 17:22:00 +0200

The OpenUp! meeting will be held in the new building of the National Museum in Prague from April 24^th through 26^th, 2013. The second day (April 25^th) of the meeting is open for everyone, whereas the first and last days are for project participants and/or Steering Committee with officials from the EC only.

For more information please visit OpenUp! Meeting website - http://www.conferencepartners.cz/openup/index.htm

BioFresh Annual Meeting 2013

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:28:00 +0200

Organizers: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ & Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries - IGB
Place: Schloß Machern, Leipzig, Germany
Event web page: BioFresh Annual Meeting 2013

ALTER-Net Conference 2013: Science underpinning the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 13:54:00 +0200

The primary focus of the conference will be the objectives and targets of the EU's 2020 Biodiversity Strategy, which should be realized by the end of this decade. Being a science-policy interface network, ALTER-Net wants to help the EU in realizing these targets by providing scientific knowledge, e.g. by pointing out possible weaknesses, opportunities and necessities, and by helping to find solutions and evidence-based actions.

Event web page: ALTER-Net Conference 2013.

Geo European Projects Workshop 2013

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:17:00 +0200

The next GEO European Projects' Workshop (GEPW7) is planned to take place in Barcelona on 8 and 9 April 2013. The event, which will be hosted by CREAF (Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications) of the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona, is intended to bring all those interested in and actively contributing to the GEOSS from all over Europe together in order to present their work and actively discuss how Europe can contribute to GEO and GEOSS.
The proposed venue is the famous Catalan art nouveau building owned by the university: "La Casa de la Convalescència" (Convalescence House) located in the centre of the city.
All Coordinators of EC projects are informed and encouraged to notify members of their teams or colleagues who may be interested in participating.
Event web page: Geo European Projects Workshop 2013

First meeting of WP5 EU BON testing and validation of concepts, tools, and services

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:25:00 +0200

In 2013, Doñana Biological Reserve will host the first meeting of WP5 EU BON testing and validation of concepts, tools, and services, focusing on the organization and planning of the forthcoming WP5 tasks. The meeting will take place in Palacio de Doñana, Huelva, Spain, from 2 to 4 April 2013.
The aim of the meeting is to bring together the experts in charge of the implementation of the WP5 tasks with the people responsible for the data architecture (WP2), the tools developers (WP3, 4) and the policy and dialogue responsible partners (WP6, 7, 8). The meeting aims at providing a precise definition of the responsibilities of the partners involved and discussing the organization of the work process.

Annual Conference of the Society for Tropical Ecology

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:22:00 +0200

In 2013, the University of Vienna will host the Annual Conference of the Society for Tropical Ecology (Gesellschaft für Tropenökologie, gtö), focusing on Tropical Ecology in a Changing World. The conference will run from April 02 to 05, 2013 in Vienna, Austria. The conference aims at maximizing interactions among scientists of all disciplines and backgrounds who are interested in tropical ecology and biodiversity.
Ongoing global change processes along the inter-twined dimensions of climate and land-use pose tremendous challenges for maintaining ecosystem functions. Traditionally, ecological research on climate change had its focus on high altitude and latitude biomes that severely and rapidly suffer from warming. Yet, effects of climate change on tropical ecosystems and organisms can be equally strong. In addition, changes in land-use exert ever increasing pressures especially on tropical biota. Understanding these processes is crucial to allow for predicting and mitigating adverse effects of forthcoming changes on tropical biodiversity and its role in ecosystem functioning. The annual conference of the Society for Tropical Ecology (gtö) will provide an interdisciplinary platform for discussion, particularly on the following topics:
- Climate change effects on tropical biota
- Influence of land-use changes on tropical biota
- Tropical biodiversity and ecosystem functioning under Global Change

Further Information: http://www.gtoe-conference.de/

Workshop: Towards a Roadmap for Research Infrastructures on Biodiversity and Ecosystem research in Europe

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:48:00 +0200

The Research Infrastructures Unit of DG RTD and the infrastructure project LifeWatch invites you to a 1 and ½ day workshop : "Towards a Roadmap for Research Infrastructures on Biodiversity and Ecosystem research in Europe". The workshop will take place Brussels on 19 and 20 March 2013.
The overall objective of this workshop is to develop synergies between ESFRI research infrastructures (RI), existing research infrastructures implemented as Integrating Activities (IA), Integrated Projects (IP) and Joint Programming Initiatives (JPI) which are relevant to Biodiversity and Ecosystem research.
The following topics will be discussed:
1. Synergy between the biodiversity components of different initiatives, also in view of the supporting role of the European research infrastructures in this area.
2. A strategy for the development of biodiversity research infrastructures in the next ten years in view of emerging scientific and technical challenges.

Further information: EuroMarine

European GBIF Nodes Meeting 2013

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:03:00 +0200

The annual meeting of the European GBIF Nodes will be organised by GBIF Finland in Joensuu 6-8 March 2013.
The meeting is by invitation only, and available for staff of the GBIF Members in Europe. In addition, any EU-funded biodiversity research projects are welcome to attend as observers.
Event web page: European GBIF Nodes Meeting 2013

Eye on Earth conference, Ireland (EEA)

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:12:00 +0200

The First Eye on Earth User Conference will be held in Dublin on March 4-6, 2013 and is officially associated with the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conference is organised by the European Environment Agency and will be opening an exciting week of conferences addressing environmental, economic and governance issues. Other events include the Envirofi day conference (6 March), organized by the Joint Research Center and the imaGIne conference (7-8 March) organized by European Umbrella organization for Geographic Information.
Event web page: Eye on Earth conference, Ireland (EEA)

12th meeting on vegetation databases

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:34:00 +0200

The German working group on vegetation databases is dedicated to building, maintaining, linking and analysing electronic archives of vegetation plot data and provides the national repository "VegetWeb", hosted by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). The 12th workshop will be hosted by the new German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig, Germany. The central mission of iDiv is to promote theory-driven experiments and synthesis as well as data-driven theory. The concept of iDiv encompasses the detection of biodiversity, understanding its emergence, exploring its consequences for ecosystem functions and services, and developing strategies to safeguard biodiversity under global change. In this context, the combined synthesis of species abundance and distribution data together with information on species characteristics is seen as a high potential to advance our understanding of community assembly and plant diversity patterns. For this reason, important databases have already become part of iDiv's data research platforms, such as the German Vegetation Reference Database (GVRD), the plant trait databases TRY and BIOLFLOR and the Chorology Database Halle (CDH) on plant distribution data. In this workshop, we seek to explore the potentials of such databases for future research, with a specific focus on vegetation databases.
Further Information: http://www.botanik.uni-greifswald.de/idiv_meeting_2013.html

2nd BioSyst.EU 2013 Global systematics!

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:58:00 +0200

The second joint meeting BioSyst.EU 2013, is organized by NOBIS Austria and will take place in Vienna from February 18–22, 2013. The conference is hosted by the University of Vienna and the Natural History Museum Vienna. Within its frame the annual meetings of GfBS and NOBIS Austria will be held.
BioSyst.EU aims to provide a European platform to:
- hold joint meetings on a regular basis;
- promote research, teaching, and training in all areas of systematic biology, including phylogenetic, taxonomic, and biodiversity research;
- encourage collaboration and interchange among researchers, both individually and through their respective societies and institutions;
- coordinate national and international efforts without infringing on the autonomy of the member societies;
- encourage formation of additional national systematic societies, while continuing to represent systematists in countries still lacking formal societies;
- increase the profile and funding of systematic biology in the European parliamen.

Further Information: http://biosysteu.univie.ac.at/

Symposium: Nature and Governance – Biodiversity Data, Science, and the Policy Interface

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:32:00 +0200

The EU BON project which is coordinated by the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin/Germany has started on 1 December and will continue for 4.5 years. The EU BON Kickoff Meeting will be held in Berlin from 13 to 15 February 2013.
With respect to EU BON’s objectives the International Symposium "Nature and Governance – Biodiversity Data, Science, and the Policy Interface" will be held prior to the EU BON Kickoff Meeting from 11 to 12 February in Berlin with high-ranking speakers. You are most welcome to attend the Symposium.
The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is pleased to host this international symposium and will bring together high-ranking speakers and guests from worldwide to talk and discuss about these
Major Topics:
- What (data) policy needs
- The future of biodiversity information: new ways for generating, managing, and integrating biodiversity data
- How new approaches / models can link scales and disciplines
- Broadening the base and opening up: new ways to engage the public and stakeholders in biodiversity monitoring and assessments
- Résumé / conclusions
For more details, please have a look at the programme page.
The 1^st day of the Symposium and the reception will be held "under the dinosaurs" in the central exhibition hall of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.
The 2^nd day will be held in the Seminaris Conference Center in the quiet south-west of Berlin. The closing of the Symposium will be celebrated as "Come together & Ice-Breaker for EU BON Kickoff Meeting" in the nearby beautiful Large Green House of the Botanic Garden Berlin.
If you want to take part, please register at the registration page.

EU BON Kickoff Meeting

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:20:33 +0200

The European Union funded EU BON "Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network" project held its official Kick-off Meeting, taking place from 13 to 15 February 2013 in Berlin. An International Symposium "Nature and Governance – Biodiversity Data, Science, and the Policy Interface" preceded the kick-off (11-12 February 2013), to discuss the current landscape of monitoring and integration of biodiversity data, and stress on the relevance of EU BON on both European and global scales.

The EU BON project will be working towards advancement and development of the technological platform for GEO BON (Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network), which operates and systemizes biodiversity data on a global scale.

2^nd meeting pro-iBiosphere

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:38:00 +0200

Pro-iBiosphere meeting 2 will be held from 11 to 14 February 2013 in Leiden. It will consist of three workshops on: e-platforms & e-tools for taxonomy Legacy literature – Semantic mark-up generation, data quality and user-participation infrastructure Prospective Literature – Toward Best Practices for data acquisition and curation using e-tools for taxonomy. More information can be found at: http://wiki.pro-ibiosphere.eu/wiki/Workshops_Leiden_February_2013