The 53rd Consortium of the European Taxonomic Facilities General Assembly (CETAF53) took place on 9th and 10th of May in Sweden, hosted by the Gothenburg Consortium, the Natural History Museum of Gothenburg, the Herbarium of the University of Gothenburg and the Botanical Garden of Gothenburg – the latter celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Directors and representatives from 36 of the 41 CETAF members, on behalf of 74 institutions, met to share experiences, outcomes and achievements from the CETAF Working Groups and linked initiatives and projects, from CETAF or from CETAF member institutions. During the two-day event, participants were updated on progress from within the Consortium and focused on the importance of taxonomy in and across Europe during a participatory session on the Kunming-Montreal Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention for Biological Diversity.“It has been a very successful General Assembly,– says Michelle Price, Vice-President (acting President) of CETAF – with the consortium showing dynamic progress and projecting into the future with the reinforcement of our advocacy role and the development of a new vision and mission for the association. We were particularly pleased to have Vujadin Kovacevic, Policy Officer for Biodiversity at the European Commission, attend our General Assembly to discuss the role our community can play in the biodiversity realm within Europe. At the beginning of 2023 we launched the CETAF community project TETTRIs (Transforming European Taxonomy through Training, Research and Innovation) with the kick-off meeting held in Brussels at RBINS. We really believe this new project will empower the community and enable it in transforming and improving European taxonomy through innovation and training.”“Every General Assembly we realize that we’ve been doing many more things than expected in the previous six months” – says Ana Casino, CETAF’s Executive Director – “and this year we were celebrating the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the General Secretariat in Brussels. The Horizon-EU project TETTRIs, that we are leading as technical coordinator, is certainly the biggest challenge for the years to come and will be pivotal to raise awareness around the importance of taxonomy for biodiversity protection. Our team is growing with several people joining the team in 2023, and the consortium is generating interest as reflected by the request from several institutions, from new countries, to join CETAF.”
