Earlier this month, OBSGESSION’s consortium gathered for an Annual Meeting, which took place between the 11th and 13th June, in Zernez, Switzerland. The partners shared two days of discussions, collaboration, group work, and knowledge exchange.

The gathering, organised by the project partner, the University of Zurich, included oral presentations and group activities, showcasing the project’s updates and results so far and discussing the road ahead. The meeting started with welcoming words from our hosts, the University of Zurich and our coordinator, Petteri Vihervaara, who presented the agenda and gave an overview of OBSGESSION. 

The morning session was then kicked off by project partners Wilfried Thullier and Joaquim Estoianan (CNRS), who showcased updates on the detection and attribution modelling framework and NaviDAM (a collaborative method and decision-support tool for identifying detection and attribution methods). After their session, the CNRS partners organised a group work activity, which gave all consortium members the chance to map their own pilots, using specific graph drawings and a browser-based coding environment design. 

The afternoon sessions continued with our partners Eline Vanuytrecht (VITO) and Stella Piipponen-Doyle (UNEP-WCMC), who discussed the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) enabling products in pilots, as well as the importance of prioritising EBV candidates and ensuring their direct application. Vanuytrecht also showcased the implementation of Work Package 2 into Work Package 5 - turning EBV enabling products into EBVs with OBSGESSION’s six pilots. 

The session also included talks on the benefits of publishing algorithms as a service (on-demand production or long-term maintenance) and an overview of products, algorithms and potential dissemination platforms, led by Marcel Buchhorn (VITO) and Jorrit Sholze (Brockmann Consult GmbH). Project partners from Wageningen University - Charlotte van Haren and Christina Hill also took part by showcasing insights into iCLUE land use scenarios and projections, and Earth Observation time series analytics. The novel ecosystem integrity index, developed by the project, was also discussed during this session by Samantha Hill (UNEP-WCMC). 

The second day of the event was kicked off by Andjin Siegenthaler (University of Twente) and Tiina Laamanen (SYKE), who led a session on eDNA-related projects within the six pilots. Our partners from Pensoft Publishers also participated with a talk, focused on pathways and tools for stronger stakeholder engagement. 

The afternoon of day 2 continued with an educational session on framing and objectives, and topic prioritisation, led by Stella Piipponen-Doyle (UNEP-WCMC). Following this was an organised group activity, encouraging consortium partners to discuss different outputs, including DAM, key drivers of biodiversity change and EBVs, where a new idea for best stakeholder engagement was born - the inclusion of a mascot. 

The Annual Consortium Meeting gave project partners the chance to highlight and discuss recent important updates and results, as well as work together on new ideas for the future. Stay tuned for more project updates.