2nd DEVOTES Annual Meeting hosted by CoNISMa, in Ancona, Italy
Two years after the kick-off, the DEVOTES (DEVelopment Of innovative Tools for understanding marine biodiversity and assessing good Environmental Status) project, funded by the European Commission under the FP7 research programme, convened for its 2nd Annual Meeting. The very successful meeting was hosted by the partner CoNISMA (Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze del Mare) and took place in Ancona (Italy) from 2 to 5 December. 75 participants from 23 research institutes, academia and SME from 16 different countries met to analyse the progress of DEVOTES and plan the next year’s activities and goals. Two members of the Advisory Board as well as a European Commission representative and several stakeholders have also attended the meeting, giving positive feedback on the work done by the Consortium so far and actively contributing to the discussion with a wide perspective. The most important results of each Work Package were presented during the opening talk given by the Coordinator, À. Borja (AZTI, Spain): - the release of the Catalogue of Marine Monitoring Networks, an in-depth analysis of marine monitoring networks in Europe aiming to assess the status of marine biodiversity monitoring, - the publication of the first report providing recommendations for the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), - the release of the DEVOTool, a software tool to select indicators for the MSFD which allows navigating a catalogue of existing indicators of marine biodiversity, within all European Regional Seas, and - the prototype of the DEVOTES tool to assess biodiversity status in European seas. The meeting was divided into plenary talks, cross cutting sessions and internal meetings focused on specific task and publications. The ad-hoc meetings were excellent opportunities for a fruitful interaction among partners, resulting in the planning of many joint publications and the identification of 4 Regional Sea Workshop to be held between 2015 and 2016. All updated information on the project progress, workshops and conferences are available on the project web site: www.devotes-project.eu. Subscribe to the DEVOTES e-newsletter www.devotes-project.eu/newsletter/ for project activities, news related to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Good Environmental Status (GEnS) assessment.
Countries
Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom