TIER2: enhancing Trust, Integrity and Efficiency in Research through next-level Reproducibility

Lack of reproducibility of research results has become a major theme in recent years. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic pressures and exposed consequences of lack of societal trust in science make addressing reproducibility of urgent importance. TIER2 is a new international project funded by the European Commission under their Horizon Europe programme. Covering three broad research areas (social, life and computer sciences) and two cross-disciplinary stakeholder groups (research publishers and funders) to systematically investigate reproducibility across contexts, TIER2 will significantly boost knowledge on reproducibility, create tools, engage communities, implement interventions and policy across different contexts to increase re-use and overall quality of research results in the European Research Area and global R&I, and consequently increase trust, integrity and efficiency in research

Modern Approaches to the Monitoring of Biоdiversity (MAMBO)

EU policies, such as the EU biodiversity strategy 2030 and the Birds and Habitats Directives, demand unbiased, integrated and regularly updated biodiversity and ecosystem service data. However, efforts to monitor wildlife and other species groups are spatially and temporally fragmented, taxonomically biased, and lack integration in Europe. To bridge this gap, the MAMBO project will develop, test and implement enabling tools for monitoring conservation status and ecological requirements of species and habitats for which knowledge gaps still exist. MAMBO brings together the technical expertise of computer science, remote sensing, social science expertise on human-technology interactions, environmental economy, and citizen science, with the biological expertise on species, ecology, and conservation biology. MAMBO is built around stakeholder engagement and knowledge exchange (WP1) and the integration of new technology with existing research infrastructures (WP2). MAMBO will develop, test, and demonstrate new tools for monitoring species (WP3) and habitats (WP4) in a co-design process to create novel standards for species and habitat monitoring across the EU and beyond. MAMBO will work with stakeholders to identify user and policy needs for biodiversity monitoring and investigate the requirements for setting up a virtual lab to automate workflow deployment and efficient computing of the vast data streams (from on the ground sensors, and remote sensing) required to improve monitoring activities across Europe (WP4). Together with stakeholders, MAMBO will assess these new tools at demonstration sites distributed across Europe (WP5) to identify bottlenecks, analyze the cost-effectiveness of different tools, integrate data streams and upscale results (WP6). This will feed into the co-design of future, improved and more cost-effective monitoring schemes for species and habitats using novel technologies (WP7), and thus lead to a better management of protected sites and species

Emerging threats and opportunities to managed bee species in European agricultural systems: a horizon scan

Managed bee species provide essential pollination services that contribute to food security worldwide. However, managed bees face a diverse array of threats and anticipating these, and potential opportunities to reduce risks, is essential for the sustainable management of pollination services. We conducted a horizon scanning exercise with 20 experts from across Europe to identify emerging threats and opportunities for managed bees in European agricultural systems. An initial 63 issues were identified, and this was shortlisted to 21 issues through the Horizon Scanning process. These ranged from local landscape-level management to geopolitical issues on a continental and global scale across seven broad themes - Pesticides & pollutants, Technology, Management practices, Predators & parasites, Environmental stressors, Crop modification, and Political & trade influences. While we conducted this Horizon Scan within a European context, the opportunities and threats identified will likely be relevant to other regions. A renewed research and policy focus, especially on the highest-ranking issues, is required to maximise the value of these opportunities and mitigate threats to maintain sustainable and healthy managed bee pollinators within agricultural systems

PROMICON Deliverable D6.1 Project branding and communication channels setup and running (logo, promotional materials, website, templates, social media)

As a foundation of the future communication activities, a set of dissemination and branding tools and materials is crucial to be established within the first months of the project. Accordingly, a project logo and website were developed in the first 4 months of the PROMICON life-cycle, which form the backbone of both project branding and public visibility. In addition, various dissemination materials such as a PROMICON brochure and a poster were produced in high quality print versions for rising awareness at events. All of the materials can be found on the media center section of the website and are available to anyone interested. Document templates were also produced and made available to the consortium, in order to facilitate future dissemination and reporting activities such as letters, milestone and deliverable reports, as well as PowerPoint presentations. Accounts have been also set in two major social media channels, Twitter and Facebook, to ensure the widest possible impact and outreach of PROMICON related results, news and events, and to engage the interested parties in a virtual community. The long‐term impact of the project's results will be secured by maintaining the website for a total of 9 years – 4 years of the project duration and additional 5 years after the end of the PROMICON life-cycle

Validation of the mapping of innovative methods and research integrity curricula

This document is an up-to-date map on curricula in which research integrity (RI) or research ethics (RE) is currently included. It contains a collection of curricula in which RI/RE or associated fields are mentioned from the Path2Integrity partner countries Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Spain. Moving forward, the Path2Integrity training programme for educators will develop research integrity courses for trainers using this map as a reference. In this way, the project aims to support educators in closing possible gaps. At a broader level, Path2Integrity is involved in discourse with various stakeholders to establish a board of educational policymakers and stakeholders comprised of members from at least eight different countries to foster RI and parts of RI in European curricula

PoshBee: Pan-European Assessment, Monitoring, and Mitigation of Stressors on the Health of Bees

PoshBee is a 5-year funded project (2018-2023) that aims to support healthy bee populations, sustainable beekeeping, and consequently pollination for crops and wildflowers across Europe. To do this we take a range of approaches, from the laboratory to the field, from molecules to ecosystems, and from fundamental science to risk assessment. This document is an edited version of the original funding proposal that was submitted to the European Commission

B-Cubed: Leveraging Analysis-Ready Biodiversity Datasets and Cloud Computing for Timely and Actionable Biodiversity Monitoring

Effective biodiversity management and policy decisions require timely access to accurate and reliable information on biodiversity status, trends, and threats. However, the process of data cleaning, aggregation, and analysis is often time-consuming, convoluted, laborious, and irreproducible. Biodiversity monitoring across large areas faces challenges in evaluating data completeness and quantifying sampling effort. Despite these obstacles, unprecedented amounts of biodiversity data are being accumulated from diverse sources, aided by emerging technologies such as automatic sensors, eDNA, and satellite tracking.To address these challenges, the development of tools and infrastructure is crucial for meaningful interpretations and deeper understanding of biodiversity data (Kissling et al. 2017). Furthermore, a significant delay exists in converting biodiversity data into actionable knowledge. Efforts have been made to reduce this lag through rapid mobilisation of biodiversity observations, digitization of collections (Nelson and Ellis 2018), and streamlined workflows for data publication (Reyserhove et al. 2020). However, delays still occur in the analysis, publication, and dissemination of data.The B-Cubed project (Biodiversity Building Blocks for Policy)*1 proposes solutions to overcome these challenges. It implements the concept of Occurrence Cubes (Oldoni et al. 2020), which aggregate occurrence data along spatial, temporal and taxonomic dimensions. Cube generation will be available as a new service provided by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). By leveraging aggregated occupancy cubes as analysis-ready biodiversity datasets, we aim to enhance comprehension and reduce barriers to accessing and interpreting biodiversity data. Automation of workflows will provide regular and reproducible indicators and models that are open and useful to users. Additionally, the use of cloud computing offers scalability, flexibility, and collaborative opportunities for applying advanced data science techniques anywhere. Finally, close collaboration with stakeholders will inform us of the requirements for tools, increase impact, and facilitate the flow of information from primary data to the decision-making processes