EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
Project no. 018340
Project acronym: EDIT
Project title: Toward the European Distributed Institute of
Taxonomy
Instrument: Network of Excellence
Thematic Priority: Sub-Priority 1.1.6.3: “Global Change and Ecosystems”
Final Activity Report
Period covered: from 03/01/2006 to 02/28/2010
Date of preparation: XX/XX/XX
Start date of project: 03/01/2006
Duration: 5 years
Project coordinator name: Simon TILLIER
Project coordinator organisation name: Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
(MNHN)
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
Section 1 – Project execution
This section will be written by the Network Office thanks to the information provided by all the
WP Leaders for the other sections of the Periodic Activity Report
It should include a summary description of project objectives, contractors involved, work
performed and end results, elaborating on the degree to which the objectives were reached. It
briefly describes the methodologies and approaches employed and relates the achievements of
the project to the state-of-the-art. It should explain the impact of the project on its industry or
research sector. It includes, if available, diagrams or photos illustrating the work of the project, a
project logo and a reference to the project website.
Sub-Section 1 – Project objectives and major achievements
WP2 has spent many resources on the objective of providing a database on European taxonomic
experts and societies. It is developed to have both the functionality of a tool of recruitment for
the EDIT BoD as well as networking site for the taxonomic community. The first version was
developed by WP5 (partner # 9 FUB-BGBM) and presented in May 2008. Further development
and hosting was then moved to WP2 and the database now named the EditExpertNet was made
available for public online access in May 2009. The Database of Taxonomic Societies originally
developed as a separate database by WP2.3 (partner # 19 CUB) was in included in the
EditExpertNet database by the end of 2008 in order to enhance the networking options.
WP2 conducted workshops on the topics of synergies and conflicts between non-professional
and professional taxonomists during 2007 and 2008 (co-organiser WP4, partner # 4 CSIC) in
relation to the objective of involvement of non-professional taxonomists, taxonomic societies
and networks.
The overall objective of EDIT is to significantly improve the capacity of the European Research
Area by integrating the efforts of its major taxonomic institutions. EDIT pursues this by working
to create and provide access to more, better quality taxonomic information and knowledge, best
suited for application in conservation and resource management, to empower stakeholders of
biodiversity in all of society.
In its fourth year, EDIT stood up to be tested. Most of our projects and products have left the
experimental phase to enter stress-testing, in the sense that they are no longer restricted to a small
circle of people in the know. Indeed, in most cases we have received many more requests (for
grants, training or participation to events) than we could support, and selection has become an
important part of the process. EDIT’s work has become an integral part of the daily practice of
taxonomists, and is identified as such.

To reduce fragmentation and to transform taxonomy into an integrated science
 EDIT is bringing together researchers and users of scientific content in several
ways. Scratchpad collaborative websites have continued their expansion, and our
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
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exemplar groups have tested many features of the Platform for Cybertaxonomy
and provided feedback to the developer team.
The EDIT Integration Research Grants (IRG) have been very successful at
helping researchers work together, removing problems of distance and
infrastructure in specific cases.
The Gender Action Plan developed a mentoring scheme to guide the early career
scientists (more particularly female scientist in early career) in their career choices
through bilateral meetings with an experienced scientist. The 6 months life period
of the programme was, though very brief, successful enough to provide 5
mentees with privileged contacts with a mentor from another EDIT institution.
The positive feedback that came out of these exchanges comfort the relevancy of
such an action as one enriching the community of taxonomists in Europe by
encouraging women scientists to pursue their objectives and creating bridges
between disciplines and institutions.
The Expert-in-training programme for training-on-the job stimulated researchers
and students to network with colleagues and to generate future research
cooperation resulting in joint research projects and publications.
EJT ?
Broad movement transforming taxonomy into an integrated science.
EDIT laid the foundation to build EOL, and COL was a foundation upon EDIT build
Put EDIT into a landscape which is changing.
Here mention Richard Lane’s report.
 To strengthen the scientific, technological and information capacities needed for Europe to understand
how biodiversity is modified through Global change
 The second version of the Internet Platform for Cybertaxonomy was developed
and released. This incorporated feedback for many users to improve ergonomy, as
well as added software and functions.
 EDIT contributes significantly to the global development of technological
capacities for taxonomy and biodiversity science. Examples include the Global
Names Architecture (GNA), Encyclopedia of Life (EoL), the International
Barcode of Life (IBoL), or the CATE project.
 Finally, EDIT also experiments with future developments in standards and
information technologies, such as our work on e-Flora or modern publishing
pipelines.
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BHL
GBIF
EDIT basis to development of the Lifewatch ESFRI
ISTC & TDWG
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
 To progress toward a transnational entity by encouraging durable integration of the most important
European taxonomic institutions, forming a nucleus of excellence around and from which institutions and
taxonomists can integrate their activities
 EDIT has developed an initial business plan for continued operation beyond
2011. This involved a detailed survey of individual activities and their successes
and challenges.
 The EDITExpertNet database of experts, expertise and societies was released to
the public this year. It is still being populated with data, but already holds stores
of information about the human resources and knowledge available in Europe.
 Inter-institutional committees like the Information Science and Technology
(ISTC) Committee and the Directors of Collections Committee (DoCC) have
made strong advances in unifying practices and standards across the continent.
 CETAF
 Conclusion from 1.6 that disproves the original assumption on common research
plans.
 Desire for organisation outside Europe to negotiate with Europe as a body and
need for a focal point.
 The ATBI+M programme has initiated and increased the participation of
European taxonomic experts in practical taxonomy in protected areas. Full-time
and voluntary experts from EDIT and Non-EDIT institutions were mobilized
and organized as professional task forces/groups.
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To promote collaborative research to develop, improve and use the needed bioinformatics technologies
 The All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory and Monitoring (ATBI+M) programme has
once again been at the forefront of collaborative research. Significant
methodological improvement has occurred and spread within the community
thanks to the EDIT ATBI+M field manual, customised data entry forms and
geographical visualisation software.
 The programme was expanded with formal or preparatory agreement with local
partners on two new sites (one in Europe and one outside), as well as 253 new
research visits to the existing sites.
 Collaboration agreements with ABRS (Australian Biological Resources Study) and
SANBI (South African National Bioinformatics Institute) are helping to spread
EDIT standards and methodologies beyond the borders of Europe.
 IRG
 DEST offers to both, trainees and training providers, a contact forum and portal
for the development of a wide array of potential, international collaborative
research activities, including applying for joint research money, organising
research meetings, setting up joint field work etc.

To create a forum for stakeholders and end-users for taxonomy in biodiversity and ecosystem research
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
 EDIT representatives liaised with stakeholders in numerous steering committees
and boards, as well as co-organised several joint events. A stakeholder
involvement assessment has revealed a staggering wealth of participation in EDIT
meetings and programmes from all over the world.
 A new approach to public awareness work helps us spread information to
potential stakeholders, through the creation of taxonomy success stories and
taxonomist portraits.
 Hands-on training on EDIT tools and methodologies such as the Scratchpads or
ATBI+M programmes help solidify interest and spread best practice.
 scratchpads
 website
 The public awareness experts within the EDIT institutions have established a
strong network. Within workshops they have exchanged on best practices and
communication strategies. It is desirable that this work will be continued in future
through regularly meetings.
 DEST training programmes allow the participants to meet, interact and establish
fruitful collaborations.
 ATBI+M contact between park managers: promoting of taxonomic expertise to
conservation specialists.
 ATBI+M engaged with stakeholders through a large workshop „Taxonomy meets
nature conservation”, at which the ATBI+M concept and its results were
discussed and evaluated by 35 stakeholders from nature conservation
management national authorities, governments, national/nature parks, museums
and universities.
 To promote the spreading of excellence to fulfil the needs of biodiversity and ecosystem research for
taxonomy-based information.
 The second EDIT Summer School and Expert-in-Training programme have been
very successful and demonstrate a high demand for training in modern and rare
aspects of taxonomy.
 Awareness of EDIT tools and methodologies has improved in the scientific
community through the use of both general and specific newsletters, flyers and
websites.
 The International Year of Biodiversity has proved to be an amazing opportunity
to promote taxonomy as a foundational science for biodiversity conservation.
Our work with the BYSE (Biodiversity Year of Schedules Events 2010) website
has been very successful in raising public awareness.
 DEST has become a major player in global taxonomic capacity building as shown
by the worldwide interest of students to follow the trainings offered. Moreover
the establishment of AtCs with SANBI and ABRS further illustrates the positive
international recognition of the DEST initiative and its philosophy. Indeed, after
having followed a training programme, trainees return to their home institutions
and countries, where they in turn contribute to taxonomic capacity building by
transferring the expertise they gained from the DEST training. This cascade
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
training optimises skill building and knowledge transfer as a "chain reaction", so
that on the longer run taxonomic expertise should increase again on a worldwide
scale.
 Field manual
 The International Year of Biodiversity has been a unique opportunity to promote
taxonomy as a foundational science for biodiversity conservation and to raise the
profile of the taxonomic facilities as provider of biodiversity knowledge and
experts in raising biodiversity awareness to the general public. The online event
calendar BYSE (Biodiversity Year Schedule of Events 2010) gathers 485 public
biodiversity events from 45 countries all over the world and mirrors the
innovative and engaged communication carried out by taxonomic facilities.
www.countdown2010.net/byse
 During the International Year of Biodiversity the EDIT institutions carried out an
important communication. Several institutions were responsible for the national
communication campaigns, were coordinating national partnerships and housed
the official launch events. They also created many new and innovative events.
During a one day workshop, EDIT institutions and international environmental
organisations (IUCN, CBD, EEA, BGCI) exchanged on their experiences and
discussed strategies for future communication. The workshop was very
stimulating for the EDIT partners and allied institutions that will carry out the
communication during the coming UN Decade of Biodiversity. A strong network
has been established, which will help future collaborations in the PA sector. The
EDIT success stories present best practices in communicating
taxonomy/biodiversity and have been published in the EDIT newsletter. The
taxonomist portraits promote taxonomy as profession and are online on the
EDIT-DEST training website.
 The ATBI+M manual on field recording techniques and protocols, which was
published in 2010 by Abc Taxa, is recognized as a valuable source of taxonomicbased information for interested parties pursuing field work and inventories. The
collaboration of many authors from various institutions worldwide made the
realization of this manual possible. Because the manual is freely available
(www.abctaxa.be), it contributes to the spreading of excellence for biodiversity
research.
 ATBI+M newsletter have been spread to a community of about 800 European
experts and stakeholders to promote the ATBI+M programme, but also to
inform about biodiversity and ecosystem research.
Sub-Section 2 - Impact on research sector
Impact assessment is a big deal. Strongest / more saleable is scratchpads, CBOL, DEST/ATBI
& DOCC (Collection Policy Board).
By the end of the year 2010 the EditExpertNet had reached a significant coverage of taxonomic
expertise; 3600 experts registered of which 1300 are coming from EDIT partner institutions and
400 taxonomical societies.
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
During the three years of the IRG a total amount of 210,000 € has been awarded to the twentyone applicants, who among the in total sixty-two applicants were successful in being awarded the
grant. The scientific outcomes have been published in well renowned peer-reviewed taxonomic
journals.
During the three years of the IRG a total amount of 210,000 € has been awarded to the twentyone applicants, who among the in total sixty-two applicants were successful in being awarded the
grant. The scientific outcomes have been published in well renowned peer-reviewed taxonomic
journals.
DEST has become a major player in global taxonomic capacity building as shown by the
worldwide interest of students to follow the trainings offered. Especially, the Expert-in-training
programme for training-on-the job stimulated researchers and students to generate future
research cooperation resulting in joint research projects and publications. Furthermore, DEST
high quality training results in a better research quality and output. Some trainees even obtained a
job thanks to completion of a specific training course.
ATBI+M
The establishment of “All Taxa Biodiversity Inventories + Monitoring” (ATBI+M) sites in
selected protected areas was the mechanism for achieving the objective to strengthen the input of
taxonomic expertise for biodiversity conservation. ATBI+Ms are intensive, large-scale efforts to
record, identify, and document the entire biodiversity of a given area. Since 2007 several
ATBI+M sites have successfully been established in four protected areas in different European
countries (France, Italy, Slovakia, and Germany). EDIT organised and supported the
participation of experts in biodiversity inventory and monitoring efforts in these areas.
The widespread interest of international experts for collaborative research is reflected by the 253
signed agreements (so-called Terms of Reference, ToR) between EDIT and individual experts
belonging to 11 EDIT and 59 non-EDIT institutions from 20 European countries. More
significant is however the targeted formation of multinational expert teams to systematically
assess the occurrence and distribution of specific taxa (the largest team was composed of 13
experts in mosses and liverworts from five countries). Through to integrated effort of these
expert teams a total of 10,410 species of animals, plants and fungi were assessed and 68,258
datasets on their distribution were delivered to EDIT between 2007 and 2010. From these, 237
species are new records for the ATBI+M sites, 62 species are new records for the countries, and
at least 20 species are new for science. One important impact on research is also given by the
large number of ATBI+M related publications (49), which have been produced since 2006:
scientific paper (23), thesis (4), and manual chapter (22).
Another impact on the research sector is the collaborative work of the production of the
“Manual on field recording techniques and protocols for All Taxa Biodiversity Inventories and
Monitoring”. It was published as Volume 8 in 2010 by AbcTaxa (www.abctaxa.be) and consists
of 22 chapters (653 pages) covering topics that range from habitat and taxa oriented methods up
to specific technologies and data management. 70 authors belonging to 11 EDIT and 29 nonEDIT institutions from 15 countries invested great efforts to make this manual happen. The
manual is freely available at: http://www.abctaxa.be. Hard copies of the manual have so far been
distributed to about 148 persons from 60 different institutions out of 18 countries from Europe
and overseas.
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
The EDIT ATBI+M network, i.e. persons that either are aware of ATBI+M or actively
contribute to specific activities consists at present of more than 800 experts and stakeholders
from about 300 European and non-European institutions. They have greatly contributed to the
huge success of the ATBI+M project and we can expect that collaboration to continue into the
future coordinated by the local staff of the national parks.
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
Section 2 – Dissemination and Use
Each WP leader to provide the relevant elements for each section as described hereunder.
2.1 Exploitable Knowledge and its Use
 What we produce is free but can be potentially used (See D12 for items and publications).
IPR: Creative commons (NC) not available for commercial use except if you negotiate a separate
licence.
See 3rd sub bullet point: any form of non-commercial use or impact….)
Engagement with the commercial sector. See commercial partners in spin off projects (ETI is a
spin off from UvA and is a partner in several projects such as K2N, Open UP…) .
This section will only present exploitable results, defined as knowledge having a potential
for industrial or commercial application in research activities or for developing, creating
or marketing a product or process or for creating or providing a service.
It should provide an overview, per exploitable result, of how the knowledge could be
exploited or used in further research (if relevant). This should be created by the project
coordinator obtaining input from each contractor that owns the knowledge and has an
active role in its exploitation.
Both past and planned future activities should be included.
Where applicable please also include an explanation of why planned activities mentioned
in previous reports have been discontinued or altered.
Overview table
Exploitable
Knowledge
(description)
1. New
superconductive NbTi alloy
Exploitable
product(s) or
measure(s)
MRI equipment
Sector(s) of
application
1. Medical
2. Industrial
inspection
Timetable for
commercial
use
2008
2007
Patents or other
IPR protection
A materials patent
is planned for
2006
Owner & Other
Partner(s)
involved
Partic. X
(owner)
Partic. Y, Partic. Z,
Poss. licensing to
equipment manuf.
xyz
The overview table should be accompanied by a short text per exploitable result,
addressing the following issues (only when relevant)1:
 What the exploitable result is (functionality, purpose, innovation etc.);
1
If exceptionally a contractor does not wish to disclose the text to the other contractors due to its commercial
sensitivity, then they are asked to send the information directly to the Project Officer.
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EDIT
Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
 Partner(s) involved in the exploitation, role and activities
 How the result might be exploited (products, processes) - directly (spin offs etc) or
indirectly (licensing) – on an individual basis or as a consortium/group of partners;
o any technical and economic market considerations – commercial and
technical thresholds etc.
o any obstacles identified which might prove to be barriers to
commercialization
 the existence or development of similar or competing
technologies / solution elsewhere
 third party rights (eg patents belonging to competitors), standards,…
 analysis of any (potential) non-technical obstacles
o any form of non-commercial use or impact, relating e.g. to the
development of new standards or policies
 Further additional research and development work, including need for further
collaboration and who they may be;
 Intellectual Property Rights protection measures (patents, design rights, database
rights, plant varieties, etc – include references and details);
 Any commercial contacts already taken, demonstrations given to potential
licensees and/or investors and any comments received (market requirements,
potential etc.);
 Where possible, also include any other potential impact from the exploitation of
the result (socio-economic impact).
2.2 Dissemination of Knowledge
 future activities & products that find their roots in EDIT.
Sell CETAF as being the way forward.
EDIT website act as a brand - needs to be shown here.
See excel Table on “final _dissemination_table”
The dissemination activities section should include past and future activities and will
normally be in the form of a table maintained by the coordinator or any other person
charged with controlling the dissemination activities.
The overview table should be accompanied by a short description for each major activity
(conference, exhibition, etc.) having taken place or planned since the last report.
Relevant details, such as references of journal publications and conferences, website
addresses, dates, quantitative data, etc. should be explicitly mentioned.
Completed as well as future activities should be mentioned with their actual or planned date.
Useful guidance on how to disseminate the knowledge generated under the project can be
found in the Commission publication entitled A guide to successful communications2.
2
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/conferences/2004/cer2004/pdf/rtd_2004_guide_success_communication.pdf
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Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
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Final Activity Report (Month 0 to Month 59)
2.3 Publishable results
This section provides a publishable summary of each exploitable result the project has
generated, and should therefore be included only when the consortium is ready to
publicise and have taken the appropriate measures to protect their IPR3.
For each exploitable result, this section should indicate:
 Result description (product(s) envisaged, functional description, main
advantages, innovations)
 Possible market applications (sectors, type of use ..) or how they might be
used in further research (including expected timings)
 Stage of development (laboratory prototype, demonstrator, industrial
product...)
 Collaboration sought or offered (manufacturing agreement, financial
support or investment, information exchange, training, consultancy,
other)
 Collaborator details (type of partner sought and task to be performed)
 Intellectual property rights granted or published
 Contact details
These data will be entered in the CORDIS Results database which is open to the public
and may be used by the Commission in its own promotional material. CORDIS will
provide a template to collect the data and ensure that the required fields are filled (see
http://www.cordis.lu/marketplace/about.htm#summ).
By the end of the project, this section of the final Plan for using and disseminating the
knowledge will include a complete set of all publishable exploitable knowledge.
3
Please beware that only information which is readily available in the public domain should be included as this
might affect the owner’s right to seek protection (eg patent) the results.
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