MARBEFES Autumn School 2026

The MARBEFES Project (MARine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning leading to Ecosystem Services) aims to evaluate and characterise the links between marine biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services and the resulting societal goods and benefits in coastal communities. The results of these evaluations feed into easy-to-use tools to help practitioners and policy maximise the ecological value and optimise a sustainable socio-economic use of the marine system for current and future generations.

This is the second and final training School of the MARBEFES project (MARine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning leading to Ecosystem Services). It is held as the project comes to an end and covers the whole MARBEFES approach: ecological assessment, socio-cultural and economic valuation, cross-cutting decision-support tools, and their uptake in real management settings.

Dates: 27-29 October 2026, 09:00-18:00 (CET)

Venue: Officine Cantelmo, via Corte dei Mesagnesi, 30

73100 Lecce, Province of Lecce

The School places particular emphasis on the ecological tools developed in the project, and shows how they connect to the wider MARBEFES Toolbox.

Over three days, participants move from measuring and valuing marine biodiversity to applying integrated tools to a real marine-management problem and presenting the results to decision-makers.

• Day 1 focuses on the ecological tools;
• Day 2 broadens out to valuation and cross-cutting tools;
• Day 3 moves from project outputs to uptake, sustainability and integrated application.

Participation to the School requires a laptop, needed for the hands-on sessions (for example, the Bow-Tie Analysis) and for the group work.

By the end of the School, participants should be able to:

• Describe how the MARBEFES Toolbox links marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning to ecosystem services and societal benefits;
• Apply selected MARBEFES ecological tools to assess biodiversity, ecological structure, functioning and vulnerability;
• Use socio-cultural and economic methods to value marine biodiversity in monetary and non-monetary terms;
• Run cross-cutting tools such as Bow-Tie Analysis and the HGOG governance and knowledge-graph approach to support management decisions;
• Explain how MARBEFES outputs were designed and developed in order to ensure their FAIRness.

The School is aimed at 20 participants to be selected among MSc students, early-career researchers and PhD, as well as at practitioners, marine managers and policy makers and policy making staff at various levels with a focus or an interest in marine biodiversity assessment, ecosystem-services valuation and decision support.

School sessions require a general environmental-science background; while, no prior experience with the specific tools is required. Several sessions are hands-on, so participants are encouraged to take an active part in the exercises and group work.

The selected candidates will be provided with:

• accommodation;
• travel (up to a predetermined amount, if exceeded participants will have to cover the difference);
• lunch and coffee breaks for the whole duration of the programme.

The School also offers one Social Aperitif and one Social Dinner.

Application form available at: https://zfrmz.eu/UUQQaW5B0ThDa276dDGD

Deadline for applications Friday 9 October 2026

For any questions or doubts, please contact us at training[at]lifewatch.eu, indicating “Enquiry about the MARBEFES Autumn School 2026” in the subject line.