Learn to Engage was a modular course that aimed to build botanic gardens’ capacity to develop effective programmes and activities to engage people with plants. The project partnership designed and piloted a modular blended-learning course. Four blended learning modules were developed in Interpretation, Working with Diverse Audiences, Science Communication and Evaluation and Research. Each module was 12 weeks in duration and consisted of 11 weeks of online learning, hosted by partner RBGE’s online learning platform PropaGate Learning, and one week on-site hosted by the module lead partner. The modules offered botanic garden and museum educator professionals a flexible professional development opportunity and promoted equity and inclusion in botanic garden and museum education. The project’s objectives were: To enhance inclusive education in botanic gardens through practitioner training. To develop innovative blended learning models for training botanic gardens on public engagement (what we want to do). To enhance botanic garden professionals’ access to C-VET through embedding training in the digital era (why we want to do it). To improve services through training on new areas of work for botanic gardens. To support the development of transnational standards for evaluating informal education. To increase botanic gardens’ capacity for showcasing the value of plants and plant science to society. The overall project methodology included four overlapping phases. Each phase corresponded to the development and piloting of a module and included the following major elements: 1. Designing the course structure and content. 2. Piloting the module and collecting evaluation data. 3. Reflecting on the delivery of the module and analysing the evaluation data. 4. Finalising intellectual outputs for each module, which took the form of a Trainer and Participant manual and accompanying online resources. Each unit was led by a different project partner with expertise in the area of focus. MUSE led the Interpretation module, RBGE led the Working with Diverse Audiences module, BGCI and MUSE co-led the Science Communication module and ULisboa and NTU co-led the Evaluation and Research module. All project partners contributed to each module through the development of resources, attending the on-site week, acting as module tutors and evaluation. Train the Trainer events built capacity within the partnership to support module delivery. Each module delivered training for up to 20 education professionals from the botanic garden and museum sector in the UK, Italy and Portugal. Priority was given to small gardens/museums with limited funding, those who had not previously attended comparable training and for other reasons did not have access to professional development training. In total, the project trained 79 individuals from 73 organisations across the UK, Italy and Portugal. Of those trained 82% agreed or strongly agreed that they had been able to use what they had learnt from the modules in their organisation. An additional 171 individuals from 18 countries received training in elements of the LearnToEngage module content through multiplier events in the UK, Italy and Portugal (this included an additional event in the UK delivered at no additional cost to Erasmus+). Through the project’s modules, both the participants and partnership representatives have developed their ability to produce effective public engagement and engage new audience groups effectively. In this way, the project has improved the public engagement offering for botanic gardens in UK, Portugal and Italy, which in turn has improved the botanic garden visitors’ understanding of plant science and conservation and reduced barriers to their participation. Combining the partnership and module participants, the number of visitors that will be impacted by this work is approx. 2.6million. In addition, through our multiplier events and wider dissemination activities of the project outputs we have the potential to reach even more visitors (Multiplier attendee organisation visitor total - 2.5 million visitors). The intellectual outputs have been shared with BGCI’s global network of botanic gardens as well as through the partnership’s national and international contacts so that the resources developed can be used to further enhance the education offering of botanic gardens and museums. Botanic gardens alone see over 500 million visitors each year (Sharrock, 2015), so the potential long-term impact of this project is very large. The partnership will continue to monitor the long-term impacts of the project post completion.

Glacial habitats host an astonishing diversity of species and life forms; however, most of the world’s mountain glaciers are melting due to climate change, threatening glacier biodiversity and the functioning of mountain ecosystems. In Europe, glacier retreat is particularly severe for the southernmost, peripheral chains, where the smallest glaciers occur. The European Habitat Directive includes Permanent Glaciers in the list of habitats deserving conservation, and glacial habitats host several endemic species. However, none of these species is listed in the Habitat Directive, and information on biodiversity of these environments is scarce, hindering our ability to manage mountain socio-ecological systems. PrioritIce aims at identifying trends, threats and processes acting on the biodiversity associated to glacial habitats (i.e. species living above the glacier or in glacier forelands) in Europe, with a focus on Alps and peripheral chains hosting critically endangered habitats. By combining traditional and molecular (environmental DNA) approaches, our consortium has already gathered data on 1) the distribution of key taxa (bacteria, fungi, nematodes, tardigrades, earthworms, arthropods, plants), and 2) a range of ecosystem functions (pollination, soil respiration and nutrients) from 52 study sites across the European Alps and southern European mountains. Building on these data, we will: 1) provide an exhaustive assessment of the taxonomic and functional diversity of organisms living in glacial habitats. We will complement the rich database of the consortium with additional samples from peripheral glaciers, with a special focus on poorly known endemic species; 2) analyse biological interactions to identify how species contribute to ecosystem functioning and services in glacial habitats. We will build on existing databases and develop machine learning protocols focusing on the impact of glacier extinction on the diversity–functioning relationship; 3) provide evidence-based priority programs and actions for managing glacial habitats and devising strategies for anticipating the consequences of glacier retreat under climate change scenarios. Together with a broad set of stakeholders, we will inform decision-making and environmental policy to preserve, support, and manage these ecosystems. Studying the distribution, abundance and functions of biodiversity across mountain environments, PrioritIce will enhance evidence-based protection approaches and shed light on the conservation of a poorly known, unprotected biota. Integrating statistical modelling approaches with innovative molecular methodologies will allow us to improve the ecological representation of biodiversity and its role in the functioning of glacial habitats in order to identify priority conservation areas. This will provide practitioners, managers and policy makers with the much-needed knowledge for defining adequate strategies for preserving biodiversity and mountain ecosystems.

In the current era of unprecedented biodiversity crisis, which is disproportionally acute in the tropics, many ACP countries have embraced international commitments to ensure green growth through conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. In Tanzania, the project Partner Country, the National Biodiversity Strategy identified in the lack of capacity and inadequate curricula by its Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) major barriers to mainstream biodiversity conservation in the country’s development. Meanwhile, the EU recognizes that actions to avert the environmental crisis need to be taken within the EU but also at global level. Applicants targeted Tanzania because of its outstanding biodiversity importance and the long-standing presence in biodiversity conservation by EU proponents. The project aims at building a network of HEIs and natural science museums in the EU and the 3 major Partner Country HEIs to implement state‐of‐the‐art HE training so to boost capacity and curricula in biodiversity science, hence improving the country’s HE offer. Activities will (1) strengthen the academic scientific knowledge and improve the HE offer by delivering modern training approaches, through introducing e‐learning courses and facilitating the upgrading of formal curricula; (2) build the capacity of HEI’s lecturers and technicians on biodiversity approaches so to deliver effective training, by targeting trainers for capacity building, producing a toolkit and providing adequate equipment; (3) boost skills of students, and update the capacity of professionals, to implement standardised biodiversity monitoring techniques in the field by organizing field training courses. Impacts generated will include the activation of new course programmes to shape an increased number of future competitive biodiversity experts for relevant professional positions, increased research, scientific production, and biodiversity programmes that adopts international standards.