Joint Research Centre

1. Joint Research Centre • The European Commission’s in-house science service Dr. Ole P. Ostermann 2nd PAERIP Seminar, 16/05/2012, Brussels

2. Our Mission…is to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle. • Our Vision driven by the Europe 2020 Strategy… is to be a trusted provider of science-based policy options to EU policy-makers to address key challenges facing our society, underpinned by internationally-recognised research. • Our Impacts for the EU citizen… supporting general well-being via harmonised research on competence areas, that have important positive impacts on the daily life of the citizen.

3. The JRC inside the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso 27 Commission Members Commissioner Mairé Geoghegan-Quinn Research, Innovation & Science Director-General Dominique Ristori Joint Research Centre DG Research & Innovation (RTD)

4. Main competence areas • Energy and clean transport • Environment andclimate change • Agriculture andfood security • Health andconsumer protection • Nuclear safety and security • Information society and cyber security • Crisis and hazard management

5. Established 1957 • 7 institutes in 5 countries: Italy, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain • Over 2,800 permanent and temporary staff • About 1400 scientific publications per year • 125 instances of support to the EU policy-maker annually • Budget: €368 million annually, plus €66 million earned income • Where you can find us • Corporate Services – Brussels • IRMM – Geel, Belgium • Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements • ITU – Karlsruhe, Germany and Ispra, Italy • Institute for Transuranium Elements • IET – Petten, The Netherlands and Ispra, Italy • Institute for Energy and Transport • IPSC – Ispra, Italy • Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen • IES – Ispra, Italy • Institute for Environment and Sustainability • IHCP – Ispra, Italy • Institute for Health and Consumer Protection • IPTS – Seville, Spain • Institute for Prospective Technological Studies

6. The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas"Providing the right information to the right people with the right tools" • The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) has been created as a component of the GEO-BON observation network by the Joint Research Centre in collaboration with other international organizations including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), Birdlife International and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). ...

7. ... DOPA is conceived as a set of distributed databases combined with open, interoperable web services to provide a large variety of end-users including park managers, decision-makers and researchers with means to assess, monitor and forecast the state and pressure of protected areas at the global scale. • DOPA is also a contribution to the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), the biodiversity arm of the Global Earth Observation System of System of Systems (GEOSS).

8. Assessing protected areas in Africa APAAT* • This experimental information system is part of a first attempt at a large scale assessment of protected areas using objective continent-wide data sets and methodologies as opposed to case studies on individual parks or global assessments. • The website contains information on 741 protected areas, across 50 countries, and includes information on 280 mammals, 381 bird species and 930 amphibian species, and a wide range of climatic, environmental and socioeconomic information. • The purpose of the work is to provide decision makers with a regularly updated tool to assess the state of Africa PAs and to prioritize them according to biodiversity values and threats so as to support decision making and fund allocation processes. • *African Protected Areas Assessment Tool

9. Scientific Support for Sustainable Development in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries • Cooperation between the ACP Group of States and the European Union (EU) has been active for over 50 years, now covering 79 countries with an estimated total population of over 700 million people. The ACP is a major trade partner of the EU and recipient of development assistance. • The web site provides access to information on themes related to sustainable development in the region. http://acpobservatory.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

10. The Observatory for the Forests of Central Africa (OFAC) • is an initiative of multiple members of the Congo Basin Forests Partnership (CBFP), it aims to pool the knowledge and available data necessary to monitor the ecological, environmental, and social aspects of Central Africa's forests. Its creation follows the formidable information sharing effort that led to the 2006 State of the Forest Report (Congo Basin).

11. The Observatory for the Forests of Central Africa (OFAC) • Objectives • OFAC provides COMIFAC* and other CBFP members a powerful steering and data sharing tool to promote better governance and the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. Specific objectives are: • the promotion of sustainable forest management of African dense humid forests; • the struggle against illegal logging; • the conservation and rational use of biodiversity; • the improvement of forest governance; • the respect of international environmental agreements • the strengthening of scientific and institutional capacities of States and Non-state actors • *Commission of Forests of Afrique centrale

12. FORAF and CEOFAC Projects • The European Commission provides the main financial and operational support to the Observatory for Central African Forests by FORAF and CEOFAC projects. The EC Joint Research Centre (JRC) manages the project and ensures the scientific coordination, in cooperation with the EU delegation in Dem. Rep. Of Congo (Kinshasa) and the General Directorate Development and Cooperation – EUROPEAID. • The projects' activities aim at strengthening the regional capacities of data collection, harmonization and analysis, and at setting up a permanent Regional Observatory of the forest ecosystems at the service of decision-makers.

13. AMESD* program Objectives • The AMESD program addresses the need for improved environmental monitoring towards sustainable management of natural resources in five regions of sub-Saharan Africa, namely CEMAC, ECOWAS, IGAD, IOC and SADC (=RECs). There are 48 ACP countries in these Regional Economic Communities (RECs), home for many of the poorest people of the world, where economies and livelihoods are highly dependent on the environment, renewable natural resources and climate variability. • AMESD is a partnership between the African Union Commission (AUC) and the European Union (EU). • The overall objective of this program is to enhance monitoring for preparedness and adaptation to environmental change, including sustainable management of the environment thereby contributing to poverty alleviation in the poorest area of the world. • African Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable Development, ends 2013 • Follow-up: Monitoring of Environment and Security in Africa (MESA)

14. Conclusions • JRC = direct research (own laboratories) • JRC = provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support • JRC = potential networking partner, within specific projects • JRC = is technically involved in developing countriesin support to policy departments (DGs) of the EC • JRC = managing projects; implementing partnerships