 EuropaBON held its first stakeholder event on user and policy needs in May 2021. The objectives of the workshop were two-fold: 1) secure commitment by the EU Commission and other high-level policy agencies, including the EEA and Eurostat and 2) reach out to and actively engage stakeholders in the different EU member states in identifying their biodiversity monitoring and data needs to address open policy questions. The information collected during the workshop provides the foundation for co-designing an EU-wide framework for monitoring biodiversity and ecosystems, which is what the project will deliver on at the end of 2023. For more information on project aims and outcomes, please visit our EuropaBON website. |
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 The workshop was well-attended by close to 350 registrants from 48 countries from various fields including policy, academia and non-profit organizations. The workshop was held over three days (26-28.05.2021), where the first day featured a high-level policy event with speakers from the European Commission’s directorate level, including John Bell (Director, DG RTD.C – Healthy Planet), Humberto Delgado Rosa (Director, DG ENV.D – Natural Capital) and Giovanni De Santi (Director, JRC.D – Sustainable Resources), followed by round-table discussions on 1) linking to the Green Deal and 2) policy challenges, opportunities and needs and targets at national levels. Days two and three of the workshop consisted of more targeted and interactive sessions in small break-out groups. The event used a variety of digital collaboration tools in order to engage stakeholders and capture their ideas and views. We are planning on uploading the workshop’s recording on our project website this week. The agenda, full list of speakers and their respective presentations can be found here. We are hoping that the EuropaBON network will keep growing (you may register via our members portal) and more importantly, that stakeholders will actively  engage with us in the coming months during workshops and other project-related events and activities to help us build the Europa Biodiversity Observation Network. One important result of the workshop was that while we already have strong research support for the project, we need to improve policy support, especially at the national and regional levels. Based on the information gathered during the workshop (especially during days 2-3) and the discussions that will follow in the next workshop of this series, to be held 23-25th of August 2021 with selected key stakeholders, we will draft a User & Policy Needs Assessment that will be circulated to key institutional stakeholders for input and comments prior to being finalized and delivered to the EC at the end of October 2021. To collect the necessary information feeding into this report, we will also carry out a survey to capture the biodiversity data policy needs of different stakeholder groups in Europe. |
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EuropaBON’s first stakeholder workshop, May 2021