Developing the Science Service for Biodiversity: Using a Database on Biodiversity Scenarios to Inform EU Policy

What policies will be most effective to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, or to reach the European Biodiversity Strategy 2030 (BDS2030)? What are the possible interventions that have been studied using future forecasts so that they can inform policy? How can this information be organised in a way that is accessible and easily navigable for policymakers (and other interested stakeholders)?​ Here, we present the results of the analysis of an in-depth review of scenarios relevant to biodiversity and the EU BDS2030, and whether linkages can be made between policy assumptions and scenario projections to highlight policies that are likely to be effective in reaching the BDS2030. These scenarios are classified in a newly developed database that will be freely accessible to the scenario community and policy. For researchers, this database will be an opportunity to showcase their research and bring opportunities for collaboration, while for policy, this database will serve as a quick overview of scenarios and be used as a research prioritization tool. The classification of scenarios has been developed closely following the IPBES classification of drivers, scenario types, among other information captured in the database. This work is part of the current EU project BioAgora, and its task on scenarios. BioAgora aims to develop the Science Service for Biodiversity, the future Science-Policy European platform for the exchange between biodiversity knowledge and its use for policy. We will also present how the Science Service is supported by its main three functions “Transforming processes within and between science and policy” to tackle the aspects of transformative change and inclusion of all types of knowledge, “Creating and supporting thematic networks”, where it links to the different expert topical networks; and “Answering and anticipating requests”, which refers to activate the previous functions to respond to the knowledge requests from the European Commission.