Lise Goudeseune

Science-Policy Officer

1. What is your job function at the Belgian Biodiversity Platform?

I work as a Science-Policy Officer for the Belgian Biodiversity Platform and I am currently involved in two European initiatives: the BiodivERsA partnership and the EKLIPSE project. My tasks vary greatly but they mostly revolve around science-policy, mapping, and foresight activities. To be specific, this means, for example, updating a European-wide database on biodiversity projects, coordinating experts to detect knowledge gaps and potential emerging issues on a specific topic, helping mapping the Belgian research landscape by listing knowledge transfer organisations and research infrastructures, organising events to gather scientists, policymakers, and societal actors around specific issues or questions, analysing horizon scanning exercises,...

2. What makes a science-policy position within the Belgian Biodiversity Platform so attracting? 

As for many of my colleagues, it is extremely gratifying to work in a field concerned by the status and future of our environment and the diversity of life it bears. I also really enjoy working closely to the scientific and research community and confronting their findings to the reality and needs of society. Our work as a Platform and, by extension, my work benefits from a unique position: we are at the crossroad of different worlds and communities, we have the chance to work with a variety of people and points of view and this, in a positive sense, forces us to have a broader view of the dynamics that are at stake in the biodiversity research area. And indeed, this does not come without challenges. From my experience, the most significant being: to show that biodiversity is not an isolated issue about conserving species but that it underpins our economy and most of human activities; to find ways to make very different people communicate and understand each other; to try to have a medium to long-term vision on what are the upcoming threats and situations and what actions are effective to handle them.

3.  What is the main challenge of your job? 

More and more people, from all horizons, are showing concern about biodiversity and environmental issues, and I believe their interest is genuine. Yet many of them (policymakers, citizens, businesses,…) are not scientists and do not know how to have access to scientific evidence and how to interpret it. On the other hand, the scientific world would largely benefit from sharing and exposing its work to the non-scientific world. If we want to make and implement real changes (to halt biodiversity loss, to reduce the negative impacts of some agricultural practices, etc.), all these communities should feel engaged and work together. In this sense, science-policy initiatives such as the Belgian Biodiversity Platform are more than needed in the future and, as such, I foresee more and more collaborations with an increasing diversity of actors and initiatives, and especially at European and international level.