Building taxonomic research capacity near biodiversity hotspots and for protected areas by networking natural history museums and other taxonomic facilities

Professional taxonomists are highly specialised and skilled experts, traditionally working in academia or curating collections in natural history museums, herbaria, botanical garden or biobanks. European collections hold and document 80% of the worlds’ described biodiversity. Today, this expertise is increasingly required by decision-makers at local and regional levels to plan and implement conservation efforts, establish protected areas, combat invasive species, sustainably manage forests, fields and seas, and many other aspects of ecological, economic and societal importance. There are millions of species still undescribed and there are far too few taxonomists to do the job: global biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate because of human activities, and, paradoxically, many species are disappearing at the same rate to the decline of the number of experts who are able to document that disappearance.

EU Member States and associated countries, often lack permanent taxo