2nd EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable (Berlin, Germany): How can a European biodiversity network support citizen science?

Abstract

The second EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable took place on 27 November 2014 at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The roundtable was dedicated to explore ways in which EU BON can support citizen science (CS) activities. EU BON is building an integrated biodiversity information platform in order to serve science, policy and administration. Also citizen scientists and related projects and networks are important stakeholders. Moreover, citizen scientists can play an essential role for biodiversity networks, as they support the increase of knowledge in the field of biodiversity in various aspects: they may debate research questions, most often they collect data in the field, and they may interpret data and publish their results. At the stakeholder roundtable in Berlin, various stakeholders from the field of citizen science were invited to discuss possibilities of interactions and the role of EU BON for supporting citizen science on a European scale. EU BON products could help CS stakeholders in various ways, e.g. with tools for the standardization of data and training on widely used and accepted data collection standards, as well as tools for the visualization/interpretation of data. Also best-practice examples and guidelines could help for developing a sound projects design as well as for data curation, storage and reward mechanisms for the community (e.g. by making data citable, publication of data papers etc.). The discussions and break-out groups gave valuable impulses for the development of the EU BON portal and citizen science gateway, for data mobilization from different communities, and the linkage to the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) and its activities. The main outcomes and results of the workshop are outlined and summarized in this roundtable report.