The EU 2020 Strategy aims to create smart, sustainable and inclusive growth designed to develop a high employment economy, while addressing major environmental challenges, including biodiversity loss. The message that green economy is an important area for job growth has been reiterated in various EC initiatives. The 2012 ‘EU biodiversity objectives and the labour market’ report points out that mapping skills shortages and training needs in biodiversity-related employment has only just begun in some Member States. A more strategic approach to training opportunities is needed. The report sees important potential benefits for the labour market with a good number of higher-skilled, knowledge-intensive jobs required to meet the EU biodiversity targets. The Convention on Biological Diversity considers the need that people become fully aware by 2020 of the value of biodiversity by integrating awareness and understanding of biodiversity and its values into national educational curricula, taking into account approaches related to Education for Sustainable Development. Based on these priorities, BIOTALENT developed an innovative blended e-learning biodiversity training programme. The right training and capacity building need to be provided today to improve competences of teachers, educators and other professionals in the sector and to improve quality of biodiversity education, effective at raising the level of biodiversity literacy for teachers and students, motivating them to learn about biodiversity and to engage in conserving Europe’s biodiversity. Educators who are innovative and who can make the difference are needed to attract young students to Science studies/careers or to STEM at large. BIOTALENT achieved its objectives by developing:- an open source e-learning platform to deliver e-learning courses;- a pilot blended course on biodiversity and climate change that trained learners and provided them with a certificate;- a customisable blended learning model, transferable to the wider sector of STEM and other disciplines;- a tutor guide supporting tutors, project partners and other users to be competent in the use of blended and e-learning techniques. The blended e-learning course specifically targeted biology teachers and trainee teachers from secondary education and educators in science museums, botanical gardens, science centres and nature organisations. Other professionals such as biologists, rangers and conservation managers seeking to improve their competences on the topic also benefited from the course. The course was also of relevance to young unemployed professionals of the above mentioned categories to provide them with the necessary competences to be successful in finding employment or to improve their position in the labour market. In addition, the course was open to anyone interested in the topic wanting to partake in continuing professional development. The e-learning platform integrated innovative services having a great potential in learning and educational context. Practicing an inquiry based learning approach and using effective multimedia to deliver learning experiences that mirror real-world practices, let learners apply the content in various professional contexts. BIOTALENT offered learners a unique transnational access to a range of facilities and expertise present in the Partnership hardly found jointly elsewhere. No less important than the scientific knowledge gained by the blended e-learning course is that participants greatly enhanced their ICT skills through the use of various internet technologies available on the e-learning platform. The e-learning programme equipped the BIOTALENT learners with new skills and knowledge that will improve the quality of their teaching or other professional activities in the sector and that will support them in finding career opportunities in education, science-related business or industries and/or to improve their position in their organisation or in the labour market. The project’s success -nearly 500 learners enrolled- and the delivery of a high quality e-learning programme relied upon the expertise and resources brought to the Strategic Partnership by each Partner. BIOTALENT involved 5 Partners coming from 4 countries (Belgium, Hungary, Portugal, Greece). The Partners are 3 Non-Profit making cultural organisations (museums), 1 Higher education institution (university associated museum) and 1 Consortium of EU taxonomic facilities. The BIOTALENT training programme and the customisable learning model remain available open access on the e-learning platform. The model can be tailored to the needs of others and transferred to new areas. The project scientific and pedagogical approach can be applied to new project ideas in the field of Science education and in the wider sector of STEM. An important continuation is that the e-learning programme will be integrated into a European and international framework for training and e-learning.

A fundamental question we can ask about the Earth's past climate is how does surface temperature respond to external forcing? Evidence suggests that the Earth's climate was warmer and more equable during the Cretaceous Period (circa 146 to 65 million years ago) than it is today - an interpretation based on the distribution of thermophylic (cold intolerant) animals, plants and geochemical proxies. This warmth during the Cretaceous has been linked to high atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Although most evidence indicates a significantly warmer Earth, with warm polar regions (including carbonate clumped-isotope data, a new tool for reconstructing temperatures), some research has suggested a negative relationship (or decoupling) between temperature and CO2 during this period. Although the Mesozoic is not a direct analogue for future greenhouse warming such intervals in Earth history provide important insights into processes operating in the climate system. Hence the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and temperature has added significance as we try to place the present climate in the context of predicted future scenarios. Warm polar temperatures during the Cretaceous indeed challenge our understanding of how the ocean-atmosphere system operated as they are significantly warmer than General Circulation Models can reproduce. This has important implications for the prediction of future climates as it implies we may be underestimating future climate change in such regions. Despite the intensive study of Cretaceous marine temperatures an equator-to-pole temperature profile for the Cretaceous greenhouse world remains poorly constrained. Problems stem from the fact that traditional palaeoproxies like oxygen isotopes requires an estimate of the isotopic composition of seawater - particularly difficult to constrain at high latitudes. A more recent approach has been to sidestep this issue by using the TEX86 palaeothermometer (a temperature proxy), although with respect to the Cretaceous this technique is limited by the distribution of suitably preserved sediments, particularly at high latitudes. This proposal aims to address this significant gap in knowledge by undertaking the first quantitative and systematic study of early Cretaceous (Valanginian-Hauterivian) marine temperatures obtained from fossil molluscs using the novel clumped-isotope palaeothermometer. These data will be integrated with new temperature data arising from other techniques. In addition to generating marine temperatures for the Cretaceous tropics, temperate and polar regions we will be able to constrain the isotopic composition of seawater and hence will also be able to provide data concerning the debate about what is the most likely mechanisms to increase the transfer of heat from the equator towards the poles. Our novel clumped-isotope derived temperatures are also expected to be of benefit to the wider community of palaeoceanographers and climate modellers by providing extensive, new data against which to test model outputs.

Few parts of Europe witnessed so many population shifts in a few centuries as the Carpathian Basin in 400-900 CE. In this macro-region along the middle Danube, Pannonians, Romans, Goths, Gepids, Longobards, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, Franks and many others came and went. This is an intriguing test case for the relationship between ethnic identities constructed in texts, cultural habitus attested in the archaeological record, and genetic profiles that can now be analysed through ancient DNA. What was the impact of migrations and mobility on the population of the Carpathian Basin? Was the late antique population replaced, did it mix with the newcomers, or did its descendants only adopt new cultural styles? To what degree did biological distinctions correspond to the cultural boundaries and/or ethnonyms in the texts? If pursued with methodological caution, this case study will have implications beyond the field. HistoGenes will analyse c. 6,000 samples from graves with cutting edge scientific methods, and contextualize the interpretation of these data in their archaeological and historical setting. The rapid progress of aDNA analysis and of bio-informatics now make such an enterprise viable. However, the methods of historical interpretation have not kept pace. HistoGenes will, for the first time, unite historians, archaeologists, geneticist, anthropologists, and specialists in bio-informatics, isotope analysis and other scientific methods. Many team members have already collaborated successfully in a pilot project, which has demonstrated the feasibility of the approach and of the integrated workflow at the core of the project. A wide range of particular historical questions will be addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective, and fundamental theoretical and methodological issues can be explored. HistoGenes will not only advance our knowledge about a key period in European history, but also establish new standards for the historical interpretation of genetic data.