Shortly after passing SHOWCASE’s third-anniversary mark, team members gathered in Budapest, Hungary (20-23 November 2023) for their annual meeting. The gathering, hosted by partners from the Centre for Ecological Research (OK), reflected the project's transition to a more mature stage. Unlike previous meetings focused on planning future efforts, this year's emphasis shifted to strategising the dissemination of results.
The meeting spanned three days of presentations, followed by a field trip to the project’s Experimental Biodiversity Area in Hungary. To accommodate remote participants, the organisers had also set up a hybrid environment, fostering interactions both online and on-site.
A round of applause for the organising team.
Professor David Kleijn, the project's coordinator from Wageningen University, opened the meeting with an overview of SHOWCASE's results and dissemination activities, including 44 published papers.
Subsequent sessions delved into ongoing work and results from SHOWCASE’s Experimental Biodiversity Areas (EBAs), featuring highlights such as the records of new species and efforts to help farmers understand the biodiversity on their lands. A central theme throughout the meeting was the legacy and continuity of the EBAs beyond the project's duration.
Day 2⃣ of #showcaseAGM2023 starts with SHOWCASE’s 🇫🇷🇭🇺🇷🇴🇳🇱🇨🇭 Experimental Biodiversity Areas
— SHOWCASE_project (@SHOWCASE_H2020) November 21, 2023
We discuss:
🕷️Ongoing work & results
🐏Difficulties & lessons
⏭️Legacy & continuation of the EBAs pic.twitter.com/EQHQQ392K3
The meeting featured presentations on the operationalisation of biodiversity targets, deriving indicators from landscape metrics (sources: here, here and here), and exploring synergies between agriculture and biodiversity. Key topics included ecosystem services providers’ gene flow, the role of diverse ecological communities in supporting ecosystem services stability, the role of birds and bats as biocontrol agents, and the biodiversity values of marginal agricultural areas. The meeting also touched on the critical role of citizen science monitoring.
In addition, project members covered the development of three key outputs: the SHOWCASE Handbook, Platform and Biodiversity monitoring app. Discussions extended to the project's work on biodiversity-based business models, on-farm biodiversity modelling, and deriving policy recommendations from results.
SHOWCASE members in the project's Experimental Biodiversity Area in Hungary.
The annual meeting ended with something new for the project – a visit to SHOWCASE’s Experimental Biodiversity Area in Hungary, focusing on improving soil fertility through the seeding of mostly fabacea to support both biodiversity and farmers.
Photo: SHOWCASE members at the third annual meeting in Budapest, Hungary