The 4th EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable took place on 17 November 2016 in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin on the topic of “Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure”. Thirty-five participants discussed key questions with regards to the sustainability of the EU BON network and products, and shared their rich expertise, coming from different backgrounds ranging from science to policy.

The Roundtable brought together key European users and stakeholders, such as the European Environment Agency (EEA), UNEP GRID, and the GEO (Group on Earth Observations) Secretariat, with the EU BON network, including 27 different institutions and organisations, as well as European funded projects', infrastructures and networks that share the EU BON objectives (Hoffmann et al. 2014) of assembling biodiversity and ecosystem-related data and knowledge, such as Lifewatch, the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), ECOPOTENTIAL, EKLIPSE and others.

The final EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable discussed the future and sustainability of the European biodiversity observation network and key questions were:

• How can the many different EU BON products be sustained and further developed after the project ends in May 2017?
• Which institutions will host the products in the future and what key products could be further developed by EU BON to meet European and global policy and research needs?
• How can a European Biodiversity Network as a whole be sustained in order to serve as a central infrastructure and pool of expertise for generating biodiversity data and information on a European scale?

The morning talks presented the current achievements and products of the project, which include data analysis tools and infrastructure, the consortium and its network of collaborators, and biodiversity monitoring and scientific forecasting tools. The project Work Package leads presented their output and products to give the participants information that was needed for the discussions in the afternoon. Projects related to the work of EU BON also presented some key facts on their aims as well as on how their work is linked to the EU BON goals.

Katrin Vohland (MfN), as task lead for the EU BON Stakeholder Roundtables, outlined the aims of the fourth and last Stakeholder Roundtable as well as the lessons learnt from the first three Stakeholder Roundtables that targeted policy makers, citizen scientists and local (test) sites that collect biodiversity data. As the discussions at the Roundtable showed, a challenging task still remains to appropriately address the needs of local researchers and data collectors and provide useful tools and products to them. In turn, Christoph Häuser highlighted the key products of EU BON in terms of data, models, tools and the portal in order to give an overview of the diverse achievements of the project.

The link from EU BON products to stakeholders was presented by Lauren Weatherdon, UNEP-WCMC and David Rose of the University of Cambridge. They provided a framework for how products could be clearly communicated to users and decision-makers (see Fig. 1) and outlined key chracteristics for decision support tools (Rose et al. 2016).

Figure 1.

How do we get from data to decisions? Extract from a presentation by Lauren Weatherdon (UNEP-WCMC). Credit: Scriberia, CC BY 4.0

Bill Kunin from the University of Leeds illustrated the range of different tools and models developed in the project. The discussion showed that some challenges still remain, e.g. how to make data uniformly harmonized and compatible across countries and applications and how to effectively bring the newly developed scientific products (modelling or upscaling/downscaling methods) to experts that are working for policy makers.

Dirk Schmeller (UFZ), in collaboration with Katherine Despot-Belmonte (UNEP-WCMC), presented a business plan for the project, stressing the fact that EU BON is one of the few EU-funded projects to have such a plan in their Description of Work (DoW). There are different models how the products and the network can be sustained (Thalmann 2016, Pan 2015) for example with establishing an EU BON core so that basic services could be still delivered (Fig. 2) and developing (optional) components for offering additional products. One of the key questions is how to fund the development of a European Biodiversity Observation Network during the transition from the EU BON project through a nurturing stage in which it can grow into a mature network. The OPPLA (www.oppla.eu) platform and business plan was suggested as a helpful model for the EU BON planning. The project EKLIPSE (www.eklipse-mechanism.eu) also offers an EU-wide platform through which policy questions will be answered and research needs identified with a focus on nature-based solutions. Both platforms have a need for access to biodiversity data and expertise to use it to inform policy.

Figure 2.

Potential organizational structure of a future EU BON, e.g. with a ‘core EU BON’ (blue rectangle). Presentation Dirk Schmeller (UFZ) in collaboration with Katherine Despot-Belmonte (UNEP-WCMC). (Credits: Pan X., 2015, CC BY 4.0)

Christos Arvanitidis, representing both EU BON and Lifewatch, raised some key questions for EU BON sustainability planning in his presentation (co-authored by Wouter Los). The EU BON products and services that should be sustained can be grouped into: intellectual products, networks, (online) services, physical infrastructure/software and the branding. He highlighted criteria to prioritize the tools for further development, for example with respect to their attractiveness and “selling value” to the private sector. The greatest asset of Lifewatch is its network of people, and the people and their expertise are also one of basic elements and “powers” of EU BON. He also outlined in his talk important points to consider for the products of EU BON with respect to its sustainability, for example: (1) Who owns the respective products / services to sustain? (2) What are the maintenance activities and associated annual costs? (3) Are the owners prepared to maintain its developed products/services, and pay for it, or generate payments by customers? (4) If not, which other organisation (existing or newly established) can take over responsibility and generate funding/income for this? (5) What is the market interested to utilize EU BON products and services? (6) Can this generate income? If yes, with what payment models? (7) Are there competitors? If yes, compete or join forces? (8) Which agreements and IPR licenses should come into place?

Gary Geller from the GEO Secretariat in Geneva pointed to some key questions of sustainability of EU BON that need to be answered. There should be a focus on operationalizing such a regional BON, as often projects generate data resources, solutions and tools but institutions see problems in actually utilizing them in policy making. Moreover, good access to the wealth of collected data seems not an individual problem (at a given institution) – it’s rather a structural problem that could be solved with the help of a Biodiversity Network. EU BON needs to be very clear about who the key users of the tools and services are and where the national governments fit in. A key argument for a European Biodiversity Network is that it helps national governments with their internal and international (reporting) commitments. To structure the sustainability planning he presented his outline of a concept paper for a Biodiversity Observation Network for the European Region.

Florian Wetzel (MfN) illustrated the achievements of EU BON with regards to data mobilisation, curation and providing open access of data. One crucial aspect for showing the relevance of a Biodiversity Observation Network for addressing policy needs is to deliver long-term data with an adequate spatial coverage. The provision of data in adequate quantities, high qualities and providing open access (Wetzel et al. 2015) will be one of the key success factors of such a network, in combination with a social network that has established functional data workflows. This will be one of the core products. In addition to that, rewarding mechanisms will be needed if a network of collaborators should be sustained. EU BON has developed motivation and rewarding mechanisms that are already increasing the mobilisation and use of biodiversity data, e.g. data papers that offer citations for researchers and data visualisation tools that help scientists to evaluate observation data. Mobile apps and repositories for citizen science data can motivate volunteers, as they can manage their data with tools that help to upload, curate and manage their data in a project space (PlutoF).

Tim Robertson (GBIF) gave an overview of the most important products, service and tools available on the EU BON European Biodiversity Portal (Figs 3, 4 biodiversity.eubon.eu). The EU BON portal offers several key products, for example the decision support tool Aquamaps, the spatial dataset browser and species population trend browser, the Citizen Science Gateway as well as a complete EU BON product list that provides information on the developed products.

Figure 3.

Screenshot of the beta version of the EU BON European Biodiversity Portal (biodiversity.eubon.eu).

Figure 4.

Visualisation of Lepidoptera density occurences: World Map (darker colors indicate a higher number of occurrences) and Lepidoptera occurences chart bar per year, exemplified with the country data of Germany (EU BON European Biodiversity Portal, beta version 11/2016).

Perspectives from EU BON stakeholders and potential users

GEO BON

The afternoon session was dedicated to intensive, interactive group discussions on the pathways to sustainability of EU BON network and products (Fig. 5). After the break-out groups discussed their specific topics and after a debriefing the final discussion focused on the projects sustainability plans (Fig. 6). The most important points raised in the discussions are listed below.

Figure 5.

Group 2 discussion: Strategies, Business Plan and EU BON sustainability (Credits: F. Wetzel)

Figure 6.

Fig. 6: Participants of the 4th EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable (Credits: F. Wetzel).

Infrastructure and networks – and EU BON sustainability

Strategies, Business Plan – and EU BON sustainability

The group (led by Klaus Henle, UFZ; Bill Kunin, UnivLeeds; Piotr Mikołajczyk, UNEP/ GRID-Warsaw) focused on the monitoring and forecasting part of the products and discussed important elements for future programs that need to be considered in order to improve monitoring and forecasting as well as to overcome existing problems.

I. For monitoring, these points need to be considered to make data recording useful for future applications:

• proper time and space (georeferencing) indication of collected records / in situ data is urgently needed to make observations useful for further analysis;
• defining the nature of an observed event – developing appropriate “meta-language”, methodological layers and metadata standards;
• proper design of monitoring procedures/methodology (sampling design, resolution, stratification, temporal scheme, etc.);
• quality and credibility of collected data (e.g. taxonomic confidence) – esp. with regard to e.g. citizen science activities, volunteer work, etc.
• it is important to decide what should actually be measured and what species or habitats should be monitored (e.g. whether data for some key species or some indicator species should be collected). It could be useful to define and employ appropriate, sensible Essential Biodiversity Variables. The goal is to provide credible and comparable data and analyses and, at the same time, to avoid a too strict streamlining as this poses the threat to lose important information;
• fulfilling geo-statistical standards (e.g. stemming from EU bird / habitat directives), but simultaneously still focus on the purpose of use and provide information that is interesting and valuable for the society;
• Citizen science – let’s be careful and distinguish haphazard, opportunistic, random observations and biased approaches from sound, methodologically credible citizen science activities.

II. For forecasting and future scenarios, these points need to be considered to improve current/existing approaches:

• infer/define and characterize main drivers of changes;
• trying to answer questions such as: why is it changing? Where is it going? Is this a stable trend? Or we (may) deal with thresholds and “tipping points”?
• the drivers may change in time, so in the future they may not be the same as defined today (e.g. decreased or increased pesticide use). So good forecasting models do account for potential changes in drivers (selection and/or magnitude) – as well as their interactions;
• another thing to consider is the speed of species response (sensitivity / resilience);
• forecasting should involve / permit building alternative scenarios;
• taken into consideration should be projected future use of data (both near and far future);
• good prognoses require considering many factors, knowledge on drivers, etc. – in short, good data. So, too much above-mentioned streamlining (taking into account too few factors, drivers and variables) and extrapolation may possibly lead to errors and non-credible forecasting;
• importance of good data documentation / metadata resources.

Some of the main responses to the questions about EU BON’s sustainability that arose from the workshop were:

1. How can the many different EU BON products be sustained and further developed after the project ends in May 2017?

• Select, develop and communicate clear flagship products of the project (selected from the rich variety of EU BON products, tools and services), and promote them more actively and to demonstrate the value for sponsors/champions. EU BON will further develop some showcases of tools that produce policy-relevant answers, and that demonstrate the power behind the network.
• EU BON will establish clear agreements with partners on how the products of EU BON are labelled or branded, so that components that were developed in the project are recognized as an EU BON product (e.g. with GBIF).
• Take the “points to consider” from the Lifewatch presentation (Arvanitidis/Los) for developing the sustainability roadmap for EU BON and apply it for EU BON products.

• Invest in the EU BON brand to sustain the network or partners in the long term.

2. Which institutions will host the products in the future and what key products could be further developed by EU BON to meet European and global policy and research needs (e.g. for monitoring, reporting)?

• The flagship products of EU BON need to address some key users and need to develop marketing strategies.
• A communication strategy should differentiate between the different user groups (science, policy, practitioners, citizen scientists), use specific communication channels to promote the specific flagship products – and avoid to merely talk in acronyms.
• A concept paper for a Biodiversity Observation Network for the European Region will be written that clearly sets out what a biodiversity observation network for Europe will look like and what EU BON has already developed towards implementing such a network.

3. How can a European Biodiversity Network as a whole be sustained in order to serve as a central infrastructure and pool of expertise for generating biodiversity data and information on a European scale?

• The network of experts is one of the most precious assets of EU BON, but it needs resources to sustain it. The sustainability of the network of people is a key component of the business and sustainability planning.
• The Enspiral network (http://enspiral.com/network-overview/) provides a model for how a network can be sustained using a decentralized organizational structure that avoids power hierarchies and is characterized by a flexible structure.
• Possible concrete next steps: submit a COST proposal to set up a future EU BON network as charity/foundation. Explore in more detail the needs of prospective users. Use the final EU BON meeting to follow-up on the sustainability discussions.