m@rble ELectronic conference on MARine Biodiversity in Europe

summary theme 3, day 1

Summaries of theme 3, as they are posted here, are compiled by the session's chairman, Ricardo Santos.

the future of marine biodiversity research

The discussion during the first day of the debate of theme 3 was clearly more “active” on topic 1. Dissemination, education, interpretation for the general public and the media was clearly a major issue for the participants on the forum.

Quality and intelligibility of the information was a main issue. Participants recognised that dissemination should be a commitment of the scientists, and that good dissemination can help funding for science. It was discussed how deep the scientists should be directly involved in dissemination in contrast to leave these tasks to specialised organisations. Who should lead the process? Either one way or the other it was unanimously recognised that dissemination and education should be part of any research project dealing with marine biodiversity, and it was probably better that the projects associated organisations particularly devoted to these matters. Thus education, dissemination, extension of science for a wider public, but principally for school children, should be included for funding when projects are submitted, either at European or national levels.

The historical role of the museums and aquaria was recognised. The importance of high standard TV series, like The Blue Planet was referred as enabling the creation of very favourable momentums that may help raise the interest of the public, and thus the market(!), in relation to marine biodiversity, including research. Some programs and/ or institutions were identified as good examples to follow.

The role of the ESF and the diverse programs running, like Diversitas, seem to be lacking of funding to launch effective research. Participants are also disappointed due to much paper work and bureaucracy that seems leading to very little. It is referred that is needed to find where the funding for marine biodiversity research can be found. Participants all are aware and favour trans-European efforts of integration of marine biodiversity research. The PEET USA program is referred.

Topic 1 - Disseminating information beyond the scientific community

The interest in nature and in the sea is still very high. The sense of excitement and discovery that marine biodiversity can provide is clearly growing. (…) Scientists should get more and more involved in dissemination in view to correspond to the growing interest of the general public on the discovery of marine biodiversity through active participation in newspapers, journals, television, and the Internet. (RS Santos) Marine biodiversity research can and should be interesting and attractive to the public and thus to politicians. (RS Santos)

The extreme beauty of marine life should be expanded much more to a broader public. (M Vincx)

Universities should collaborate with schools at all levels. It will be only in this way that respect for marine life and for nature in general will increase! (M Vincx)

Poor school children! Everybody wants to put hands on them to feed them with information. It is a strong competitive situation. (H-J Neubert) Information packages for schools must be of high, if not highest quality. And quality is expensive. School and educational bodies usually are not in the position to offer this money. (H-J Neubert)

Schools should indeed get the highest quality information but they should not pay for this. The scientists (or at least the science policy makers) should pay for that and than the information can be given for free to the schools. (M Vincx)

There has to be far greater efforts by scientists to explain why the environment is important and why species are important especially to the vast numbers of urban children who are frightened of open spaces and not being in a crowd. These children will be the foundation of democratic decision making in the future. Awareness of the natural world is a fast-disappearing quality in the young. (M. Angel)

Involving school children can be part of science as well. … That way public awareness of marine biodiversity science is a fact. (M Vincx)

Interest in the oceans and their biodiversity in particular, is not only still very high, but is growing! … the public demands quality. But quality is expensive. (H-J Neubert) If a research project is EU funded, scientists may claim for a budged for such activities, as one criterion for proposals under the current EU framework programme is how to disseminate the results of a project. Here proposers may include professional science communicators as partners within the project, who do more than just produce web pages (which is not "disseminating" results). (H-J Neubert)

The Blue Planet series is brilliant, but it does give a very lop-sided view of the ocean. It focuses on the "filmable" and the charismatic elements. It builds an awful expectation amongst the general public that if they go out on the ocean they will witness large whales and sharks cavorting in the waves. (M Angel) The series is providing a window of opportunity through the interest it has generated. (M Angel)

With popular science publications one is in a competitive market. (H-J Neubert)

Museums and aquaria are very effective (F Boero)

We have to interact with environmentalist movements on every level and we have to encourage our students to join and take part to their activities. Scientific information is disseminated more by them than by scientists! (F Boero) We need special organizations that help with the translation of science to a broader public and to the science policy (and thus the politicians). Scientists can collaborate with these organizations but are not responsible for the dissemination of the results. (M Vincx)

Institutions exist. Scientists should only make use of them. (H-J Neubert) Institutes who can disseminate results to a broader public should go to the scientists, not the other way around. (M Vincx)

Talking to and acting with the public seems to be a crucial thing for scientists. (…) Communication with the public is one of the duties of scientists, as they are paid by the public. (H-J Neubert) Open your labs and research vessels for science communicators for a week as a so called "hands-on lab". (H-J Neubert)

We need to spend far more time in conveying to the communicators our knowledge, its limitations and our concerns using clear simple terminology, and with greater resort to illustrative metaphor and story-telling. (M Angel)

Global problems cannot prevent us from considering local problems. Again, it is a matter of being convincing, especially with politicians. Sometimes local governments (countries, provinces and so on) are more sensitive towards these problems than national or even European ones. The risk is to become too provincial, and act in an uncoordinated way. (F Boero)

Topic 2 - Marine biodiversity and the EU and ESF

Marine biodiversity has good visibility in the Marine Science Plan of the European Science Foundation. This now requires translation into the mechanisms that the EU and ESF are developing for supporting marine research in the EU in the coming new framework programme.

ESF has no money to invest on the scale of marine biodiversity research needed. (…) We need a coordinated action to target where the funds are and not have too much faith in organisations that have the right motives but no funds such as DIVERSITAS, ESF, CBD the UN system in general. (J Gray)

Despite the networks we have: DIVERSITAS, ESF, and specific projects (BIOMARE, ...) why are we not progressing then as we should be ? Because lack of enthusiasm of scientists ? Because lack of knowledge how to sell our science? I think a big issue is the problems we have with 'the translation' of the scientific information to challenging topics which are of interest for a broader public. And as said earlier, therefore we need specialised organisations that should help us with this... Publicity is very important nowadays. (M Vincx)

I have spent many hours preparing paper documents that no one seems to have asked for or want. (J Gray) We spend too much time in writing papers, statements, proposals, ... without too much result in getting new funds. (M Vincx) There are (at least) two strategies of funding, (1) the competitive peer-review system favoured by EU focused on EU priorities, and (2) funding of researchers and labs that are doing what funding agencies feel should be done. We need to suggest to EU that the latter option should also be part of the European research activity whether funded by EC or member states. (M Costello)

I do not agree that EU has to fund ‘laboratories’ only because they have a certain expertise. (M Vincx)

The scientists who have their hooks on politicians succeed in having funds, no matter what they do. (F Boero)

Topic 3 - Integration beyond Europe

Should Marine Biodiversity Research in European focus on European seas only, or should this research be more ambitious and global? What should be the strategic investments? What should be the strategic links to be created in view to develop marine biodiversity research in Europe and beyond Europe? (RS Santos)

I’m in favour of an enhanced contact between existing networks of biodiversity. Global organizations organise common discussion themes and synthesise them in global programmes. (M Vincx)

The Partnership for the Enhancement of Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET) wants desperately to interact with Europe, it is a National Science Foundation Product. (F Boero)

Topic 4 - Restoration, preservation, discovery and strategic hotspots for marine biodiversity research

What is left of marine biodiversity in Europe? (…) Will be the future of research more dedicated to restoration of habitats and of lost biodiversity or to the preservation of pristine habitats and associated biodiversity? What should be the balance for research? (RS Santos)

Monitoring biodiversity in all levels and identifying long term succession series of species is an important topic in the follow-up of restoration and preservation of ecosystems. Marine scientists have to be aware in the first place that restoration and/or preservation of marine biodiversity will be the result of a very complex set-up of marine management for sustainable development. (…) Marine scientists should put priorities about conservation aims: conservation of hot-spots of biodiversity is often in conflict with the conservation of e.g. the popular marine birds who needed special categories of food (…) (M Vincx)

It is important to create platforms to integrate research and networking at the deep-sea, pelagic and coastal biodiversity. (RS Santos)

Hot spots are really hot? (…) We speak about things, but it is not so clear what are their definitions. (F Boero)