Policy actions that build ecosystem resilience, mitigate climate change, and enhance human wellbeing require a credible forecasting capability to test scenarios involving policy and management decisions at fine resolution but also at global scales. They also require an agile and dynamic modelling platform to allow for novel system behaviours with policy-relevant outputs.
A recent review of the alignment of existing modelling frameworks with the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework and the IPBES Nature Futures Framework (Defra 2025) highlights significant potential for linking model-based scenario approaches to tackle the coupled biodiversity and climate crisis (WBF 2024 resolution point 6). Intersecting scientific domains will help advance the field to better identify synergistic levers and constructively inform society to redirect towards sustainable futures. However, the absence of a convening space for those developing models and scenarios with replicable data to decision workflows and knowledge and experience sharing is potentially hampering progress.
In this workshop, we aim to initiate a network that bridges existing networks of modelling communities (e.g. BES-SIM2, BtC 2.0, ISIMIP Biodiversity, FishMIP, Ecode, BioFutures) to foster necessary exchange and collaboration. This would span from ecological monitoring to model and scenario development to enhance data to decision workflows. The vision of this network is to improve the use of scenarios in the design and implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework, National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, and National Reporting through collaboration between policy bodies and scientific communities.
The format will consist of three sessions with a policy panel, introduction to scientific initiatives and exemplary studies, followed by interactive exercises with participants in a day-long workshop. The first session will identify key milestones needed to link model-based and actionable scenarios to key policy processes. The second and third sessions will focus on how to deliver these milestones through existing networks and by identifying priority scenarios and model development needs. The expected outcomes of this workshop include: 1) the establishment of a network to spearhead strategies for knowledge-sharing between scenario and modelling communities, 2) the development of a roadmap for strategic research collaboration to inform key science-policy interfaces to be published in a journal.
[Workshop] Developing actionable scenarios and models for biodiversity conservation, climate neutrality, and human wellbeing through collaborative and integrated research and practice.