Activities
Workshop 1 on the Governance of Taxonomic Lists
There are currently no universally accepted principles for deciding which biological species, and thus which scientific names applied to them, should be accepted where there are alternative taxonomic treatments. In February 2020 the first of a series of three IUBS supported workshops was held in Darwin Australia to help develop a governance framework for taxonomists and the users of taxonomy that they can then use to decide which names should be used by society, while continuing to encourage taxonomic research. The purpose of the workshop was to start resolving the outstanding issues surrounding a set of principles for unified list creation and refine them for publication as the first stage in developing a conversation among the global community of taxonomists and the users of taxonomy. Further activities will include development and submission of manuscripts on achievements and gaps in global list assembly, a governance regime for a global list describing the potential to shift from polycentric to federalist governance, the minimum requirements for inclusion on a global list, and balancing the scientific independence of taxonomy with an aspiration to involve users of taxonomic lists.
Date: Monday 10th February to Wednesday 12th February 2020
Place: Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Ellengowan Drive, Casuarina, Northern Territory, Australia
Number of participants: 16
Countries involved: Australia, Austria, Belgium, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, United Kingdom, USA
Presentations of the programme at meetings/conferences/workshops
Workshop attendees developed a comprehensive list of conferences and workshops at which the ideas discussed at the Darwin workshop were to be discussed but the program has been thrown into disarray by the current pandemic and an alternative strategy is being developed that will revolve around release of publications following peer-review and acceptance.
Articles published
No articles yet published but one resubmitted after review and two drafted. Full details will be provided when articles become available.
Development of partnerships
Workshop participants, and invitees who could not attend, have been given permission by the IUBS to call themselves the IUBS Working Group on the Governance of Taxonomic Lists. This group will have carriage of taking forward the conclusions of the first workshop.
Other outcome
Other outcomes will be derived from the five publications currently submitted or in various stages of preparation.
Related:
Nationalities and names of people participating in the programme:
Olaf Banki (Netherlands), Saroj Barik (India), John Buckeridge (Australia), Les Christidis (Australia), Stijn Conix (Belgium), Mark Costello (Ireland, New Zealand, Norway), Stephen Garnett (Australia), Donald Hobern (Australia), Aaron Lien (USA), Anna Monro (Australia), Narelle Montgomery (Australia), Svetlana Nikolaeva (Russia, UK), Richard Pyle (USA), Kevin Thiele (Australia), Scott Thomson (Brazil, USA), Peter Paul van Dyck (Netherlands, USA), Haylee Weaver (Australia), Anthony Whalen (Australia), Bao Yiming (China), Frank Zachos (Austria, Germany, South Africa), Zhi-Qiang Zhang (New Zealand)
Action plan for 2021
Plans for the second workshop have been disrupted by the pandemic. The workshop was to have been held in Washington, USA, to enable greater socialisation of the ideas among the taxonomic community based in North America. However, even at the workshop in Darwin, concern was expressed that the funds available might make it difficult for such a meeting to be sufficiently inclusive. The plan now is to use the skills developed during the pandemic to run a series of global discussions online on the principles for aggregation and the governance structure of a global body that might work with list aggregators for different taxonomic groups. The main requirement for running such workshops will be secretariat support to organise online participation with relevant taxonomists and taxonomic users. We also have the capacity to run similar workshops not only in English but also in at least Spanish and Chinese, for which we shall need to pay for interpreter/translation services.