Advisory board

Expertise: Biodiversity conservation

BirdLife Europe and Central Asia

Ariel Brunner is senior head of policy and acting director of the environmental NGO BirdLife Europe and Central Asia. He coordinates work on various policies ranging from nature and biodiversity conservation, to climate and energy, fisheries and agriculture. He is currently a member of the EU Platform on sustainable finance. Mr. Brunner has chaired DG Agriculture’s Advisory Group on Agriculture and Environment and has been a member of its Expert group on Public Goods, and of the European Commission’s High Level Steering Group on the European Innovation Partnership on agriculture.

Expertise: Pest and disease mgmt

James Hutton Institute

Graham Begg is a key staff member leading the Integrated Pest and Disease Management (IPM) research at the James Hutton Institute. His research focuses on the dynamics of natural and semi-natural populations by examining how they respond to changes in the arable environment and its management, and how this affects important ecosystem functions such as pest regulation, primary production and biodiversity. He is furthermore interested in the impact of novel plants and genes on the environment, weed diversity and landscape agroecology. He is currently coordinating the H2020 FRAMEWORK project (funded under that same call SFS-01-2018-2019-2020 (B) as SHOWCASE), aiming to enable scientific cross-talk between these closely related H2020 projects.

Expertise: Biodiversity and agroecology

European Environment Agency (EEA)

Katarzyna Biala has a background in biology and agroecology. She is a biodiversity indicators and assessment expert at the European Environment Agency (EEA). Currently her work focuses on supporting the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the EU Pollinators Initiative. Ms. Biala has worked on a range of topics, including biodiversity conservation in agroecosystems, low-input farming systems, monitoring abundance and distribution of various species groups, genetic diversity of crops and livestock, invasive alien species, as well as development of indicators to assess progress towards the EU and global biodiversity targets.

Expertise: Biodiversity and agroecology

Syngenta Group 

Claire Brittain holds a background in entomology and agroecology. Her career started in research, focusing on measuring and supporting pollinators in agricultural systems. She has since moved into industry working in the Environmental Safety group at Syngenta on risk assessment and sustainability. Ms. Brittain has expertise in measuring and analysing biodiversity and ecosystem services in the field, particularly pollinators and pollination, as well as ecotoxicological risk assessment of plant protection products.

Expertise: Biodiversity and pollination

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)

Hien Ngo has a background in biology with a focus on entomology (melittology). She is a biodiversity and pollination expert at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN-FAO). Ms. Ngo supports the implementation of the work plan on micro-organisms and invertebrates, the implementation of the second International Pollinator Initiative and the overall work of FAO on pollinators and biodiversity. Currently her work involves the science-policy interface and policy development at an international and regional scale.