• UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, UK
• Universit Paris-Sud Laboratoire ESE, France
• Sofia University, Bulgaria
• State University for Library Science and Information Technologies, Bulgaria
• University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Univ. J. Fourier, France
• Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberg Gesellschaft fur Naturforschung, Germany
• University of Macedonia, Greece
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
• The Israel Nature & Parks Authority, Israel
• Universit di Roma La Sapienza, Italy
• PBL-Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Netherlands
• University of Bergen, Norway
• Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• Geological Institute of Romania, Romania
• University of Bucharest, Romania
• University in Belgrade, Serbia
• Slovenian Forestry Institute, Slovenia
• National Museum of Natural Sciences, Spain
• Imperial College London, UK
• CSIRO, Australia
• Yale University, USA
• University of British Columbia, Canada

The main objective of the HarmBio partnership is the harmonization of current models and datasets of terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity to improve the reliability of future projections of biodiversity change under various policy options enabling environmental decision making, potentially as input to IPBES and similar assessment processes.

Global biodiversity is declining rapidly, largely as a result of human activities. Effective policy and adaptive management strategies in the face of global change require anticipation of future changes. Mid- to long-term planning will therefore depend, at least in part, on model-based projections. Unlike the well-coordinated climate modelling community, the biodiversity modelling community is currently disparate and largely uncoordinated. Hence, there are no agreed metrics of biodiversity produced as standard output from models, nor are there common datasets used for calibration and validation by modelling efforts. This Action facilitates the harmonization of current models and datasets of terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity to improve the reliability of future projections of biodiversity change. This cross-community initiative aims to accelerate the development of transparent and scientifically robust biodiversity models, through validation, calibration and intercomparison of models and data, and ultimately to enable environmental decision making based on state-of-the-art projections of biodiversity change under various policy options.