World Biodiversity Forum – Call for Session and Workshop Proposals now open!

Call for Session and Workshop Proposals now open!
Join us for the World Biodiversity Forum 2020 and explore the future of biodiversity.

The inaugural World Bio­di­ver­si­ty Fo­rum will bring to­geth­er lead­ing re­searchers, ear­ly ca­reer re­searchers, prac­ti­tion­ers, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from dif­fer­ent sec­tors, de­ci­sion-mak­ers and so­ci­etal ac­tors to have a con­ver­sa­tion on the kind of fu­ture we want (and/or do not want) for bio­di­ver­si­ty.

The Fo­rum will pro­vide a plat­form for ex­change, cov­er­ing a wide range of per­spec­tives, and cap­tur­ing a di­ver­si­ty of vi­sions. With this, it aims to re­de­fine and set the agen­da for bio­di­ver­si­ty as a fo­cal point over the next 10 years.

For more information on the World Biodiversity Forum, visit www.worldbiodiversityforum.org
or contact info@worldbiodiversityforum.org or biodiscovery@futureearth.org

Contributions to the Forum should

• High­light the im­por­tance and ben­e­fits of bio­di­ver­si­ty for hu­man well­be­ing, and the val­ue of bio­di­ver­si­ty re­search for so­ci­ety
• High­light the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty of the dif­fer­ent sec­tors and so­ci­etal ac­tors in re­gard to the con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty
• Iden­ti­fy what is need­ed to suc­cess­ful­ly im­ple­ment/use cur­rent knowl­edge on bio­di­ver­si­ty and ecosys­tem func­tion.
• Iden­ti­fy best prac­tices for gen­er­a­tion of prod­ucts and ser­vices for dif­fer­ent sec­tors and so­ci­etal ac­tors, in­clud­ing cor­po­ra­tions.

Proposed sessions should cut across dis­ci­plines, cov­er a di­ver­si­ty of per­spec­tives and vi­sions and ad­dress cur­rent top­ics in nov­el ways.

We ac­cept pro­pos­als for the­mat­ic ses­sions and in­ter­ac­tive work­shops.

Deadline for submissions is 21 July 2019.

Thematic Sessions

Ses­sions pro­vide the plat­form to dis­cuss top­ics of in­ter­est in an in-depth man­ner. The pro­posed ses­sions can take dif­fer­ent forms, from the tra­di­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic ses­sions with one key note and 4 – 6 ad­di­tion­al talks, 4 – 6 talks lead­ing to an in-depth dis­cus­sion of a spe­cif­ic top­ic, or a pan­el or round ta­ble dis­cus­sion in­volv­ing 4 – 6 in­vit­ed par­tic­i­pants.

We en­cour­age ses­sion pro­pos­als that ex­am­ine the val­ue of bio­di­ver­si­ty for dif­fer­ent sec­tors and the ex­ist­ing/en­vis­aged com­mit­ments of sec­tors, so­ci­etal ac­tors and pol­i­cy to im­ple­ment mea­sures that pro­tect and con­serve bio­di­ver­si­ty, and lead to e.g. spe­cial is­sues in jour­nals, jour­nal ar­ti­cles, white pa­pers, pol­i­cy briefs, and more.

Submit your session proposal

Workshops

Work­shops are in­ter­ac­tive ses­sions and build on ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of the au­di­ence. They fos­ter net­work­ing, fa­cil­i­tate in­ter­ac­tion and con­tribute to skills de­vel­op­ment. Work­shops can be con­ceived as train­ing work­shops, or as work­shops to pre­pare e.g. a joint pub­li­ca­tion or a se­ries of meet­ings around a spe­cif­ic top­ic.

We do have slots avail­able for

• 1-day work­shops (pre­ced­ing the con­fer­ence, lim­it­ed slots avail­able)
• 4-hour work­shops (morn­ing or af­ter­noon)
• 2- hour work­shops (morn­ing or af­ter­noon)
• lunch-time work­shops (1 – 1.5 hours)

Submit your workshop proposal

We look forward to receiving your contributions!

Cornelia Krug,
on behalf of the Scientific Organisation Committee of the World Biodiversity Forum
Michael Schaepman, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Lynne Shannon,
Anna Deplazes-Zemp, Gabriela Schaepman-Strub, Maria Joao Santos, Owen Petchey,
Rees Kassen, Craig Starger, Eva Spehn and Debra Zuppinger-Dingley