Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TETTRIs (Transforming European Taxonomy through Training, Research, and Innovations)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-12-01 bis 2024-05-31
Accurate taxonomic knowledge of biological species and tools are needed to understand the drivers and impact of biodiversity decline. However, the field of taxonomy is severely hampered by a continuous decrease in capacity. With TETTRIs, we envision a transformative change in the field of taxonomy to build and sustain taxonomic research capacity through increasing knowledge and developing systems. TETTRIs will achieve this aim by creating joint knowledge in reference collections, training frameworks, and with innovative tools as well as by developing centralized resources providing access to an expertise marketplace, the taxonomic knowledge platform, and career paths. The core methodology for reaching these objectives includes co-creation with citizen scientists, and professionals in biodiversity hotspots. The open-access knowledge and systems built into TETTRIs, together with citizen scientists, will accelerate the integration and expansion of taxonomy in education, governance, and multidisciplinary research. This will ensure the long-term relevance of taxonomy as an instrumental science, necessary to halt European and global biodiversity loss, and ensuring ecosystems and their services are preserved and sustainably restored on land, inland water and at sea. TETTRIs builds taxonomic research capacity near biodiversity hotspots by networking natural history museums and other taxonomic facilities through bottom-up co-creation between 17 partners. The consortium includes the European Citizen Science Association and several of Europe's leading natural history museums, botanic gardens and universities unified under CETAF, the leading European voice for taxonomy and systematic biology. Impact throughout the EU and beyond is secured through involvement of associated initiatives such as DiSSCo and DEST, partners in third party projects, and key TETTRIs dissemination activities towards a new generation of taxonomists, citizen scientists, users in need of taxonomic knowledge, and decision makers
In advancing the field of taxonomy and beyond, TETTRIs will implement several technical and systems innovations developed by consortium partners and validated in collaboration with target groups such as citizen scientists and third-party partners. TETTRIs aims to achieve the following objectives:
1. Create an expertise marketplace to index currently available international taxonomic data and expertise.
2. Develop an online knowledge platform for the integration of, and access to, taxonomic resources and tools.
3. Formulate a roadmap for physical and digital reference collections and validate it by creating a pollinator reference collection.
4. Develop a sector-specific training framework and demonstrate it by facilitating training programs that increase professional and non-professional taxonomy expertise.
5. Test and validate the innovations developed with new taxonomic tools.
6. Develop and secure a joint vision and action plan with academic and non-academic stakeholders to broaden the taxonomy career path and perspectives.
TETTRIs will include a process for testing, assessment and validation that will involve on-field actors close to hotspots and protected areas. To do that, TETTRIs collaborates with 17 third-party projects (3PP) and allocates 30% of the project funding for these activities. This community-based perspective is fundamental to the entire ethos of the project from the inception stage to the piloting, evaluation and through to the final endorsement.
1. Create an expertise marketplace to index currently available international taxonomic data and expertise.
2. Develop an online knowledge platform for the integration of, and access to, taxonomic resources and tools.
3. Formulate a roadmap for physical and digital reference collections and validate it by creating a pollinator reference collection.
4. Develop a sector-specific training framework and demonstrate it by facilitating training programs that increase professional and non-professional taxonomy expertise.
5. Test and validate the innovations developed with new taxonomic tools.
6. Develop and secure a joint vision and action plan with academic and non-academic stakeholders to broaden the taxonomy career path and perspectives.
TETTRIs will include a process for testing, assessment and validation that will involve on-field actors close to hotspots and protected areas. To do that, TETTRIs collaborates with 17 third-party projects (3PP) and allocates 30% of the project funding for these activities. This community-based perspective is fundamental to the entire ethos of the project from the inception stage to the piloting, evaluation and through to the final endorsement.
TETTRIs aims to create a starting point to build knowledge and systems for development and interconnection of training, tools, services, expertise, reference collections and career development, and work on implementing this into the field of integrative taxonomy. It seeks to achieve a transformative new mindset in the field of taxonomy as to be integral, in terms of taxonomic dimensions (from morphology to genomic), pluridisciplinar, as to be meaningful for a varied number of users (from scientific disciplines to policy makers and industrial actors) and innovative and strategic (incorporating enhanced and effective pathways towards a sustainable future). To that end, TETTRIs integrates this inclusive approach through actively working on diverse stakeholder engagements, facilitating the involvement of practitioners and seeking the integration of taxonomic science in all societal layers to support decision making and ensure long-term relevance of taxonomy as an instrumental science for biodiversity.
In addition to the scientific, technological and socio-economic impacts, a cross-cutting feature of TETTRIs is its community-based approach. Under the co-leadership of CETAF, and in line with the TETTRIs vision and objectives, the project is making great progress in closing in the gaps, avoiding duplication and fighting scatteredness of data by bringing European taxonomic players together and including different stakeholders from industries, academia, interested organisations and NGO’sprivate sector, etc into the discussion. TETTRIs is developing key tools and services that will centralise taxonomic knowledge and expertise. This is seamlessly aligned with the expected impact of the HE Call, namely: contributing to the interconnection of European innovation ecosystems.
In addition to the scientific, technological and socio-economic impacts, a cross-cutting feature of TETTRIs is its community-based approach. Under the co-leadership of CETAF, and in line with the TETTRIs vision and objectives, the project is making great progress in closing in the gaps, avoiding duplication and fighting scatteredness of data by bringing European taxonomic players together and including different stakeholders from industries, academia, interested organisations and NGO’sprivate sector, etc into the discussion. TETTRIs is developing key tools and services that will centralise taxonomic knowledge and expertise. This is seamlessly aligned with the expected impact of the HE Call, namely: contributing to the interconnection of European innovation ecosystems.