Month: July 2023

A word from Claire SALOMON, CESAB’s deputy director

Since its creation in 2010 within the Foundation for Biodiversity Research (I was there!), CESAB has passed several milestones. Firstly seen as a non-identified, yet relevant, object by some in the biodiversity research community, CESAB appeared very abstract to others. The first few groups who stayed at CESAB sometimes doubted themselves of the added-value of gathering in “one place, one time for biodiversity research”. Yet, results were quick to emerge and far beyond our hopes! New networks were created, young researchers acquired an international experience, not to mention all the publications at the cutting edge of research. The biodiversity crisis and IPBES have also, unfortunately, shed light on the relevance of synthesis centers, increasing the appeal of the industry and stakeholders. The number of co-funding opportunities, requests and projects grew from year to year, bringing closer together stakeholders and the scientific community and vice versa.

 

From the 4 initial CESAB groups, we have now reached 30 today, corresponding to a community of 450 researchers of all nationalities spending two weeks a year at CESAB offices. To ensure the best possible working conditions during the entire length of the projects, CESAB is necessarily run by teams from the FRB in Montpellier and Paris, with a new administrative support this year to maintain the same quality of work. CESAB is also a cohort of post-docs, and will welcome four new members at the start of the academic year within the groups ACOUCENE, BIOFOREST, FOOD-WEBS and IMAPCTS. And to keep all this work consistent, CESAB’s scientific committee keeps an oversight and anticipation of the scientific work conducted, the administrative council of the Foundation and its funding members drive the development of the center and give us the means to act via a wide variety of calls for proposals: from the DATASHARE to OPEN calls, not to mention targeted calls.