After an online Kick-off in July, the BioAgora Consortium held its in-person Kick-off meeting and its official launch event in Helsinki on 9-10 November 2022.
BioAgora’s Kick-off meeting
BioAgora’s Kick-off meeting began with a warm welcome by project coordinator Kati Vierikko (SYKE). She presented the project’s background and highlighted the need to be coherent, inclusive, and transparent in order to achieve BioAgora’s goals.
A group discussion was led by our project partner ESSRG regarding the links between implementation challenges and the different objectives of the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. In the afternoon, an interactive workshop allowed the partners to set up a five-year timeline for all activities in BioAgora. Presentations and discussions about the project’s activities continued on the second day and the next steps and actions points for each work package were defined.
BioAgora’s Launch event
BioAgora’s launch event was live-streamed on YouTube and moderated by our partner Ben Delbaere. The event featured a wide range of speakers from the consortium discussing the project’s objectives in light of the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. They also addressed the specifics of setting up the Science Service for Biodiversity. Representatives of the European Commission and long-standing European initiatives Biodiversa+ and Eklipse discussed the importance of the project for biodiversity in Europe. They all expressed the unique opportunity BioAgora has to connect policy-making with the wealth of available knowledge on biodiversity.
Lastly, the brand new project website and introduction video were presented to the audience. If you have missed the BioAgora Launch event, you can access the recording on our YouTube channel.
Thank you to our speakers and attendees for participating in these two important events. We are looking forward to sharing the future developments of the project!
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Images: © Raya Chakarova