The National Biodiversity Future Center is one of the five national centers dedicated to frontier research involving institutions and businesses throughout Italy. Over 1500 researchers and 48 partner entities are committed to studying and preserving the ecosystems and biodiversity of Italy.
Biodiversity in all its forms, from microbes to plants and animals, including the human species with its cultural diversities, is in the Mediterranean – and particularly in Italy – an even more precious heritage. In our country, a biological diversity among the most significant in the whole of Europe is concentrated, with 60,000 animal species, 10,000 vascular plants, and over 130 ecosystems. To study and protect this wealth – whose protection is now also enshrined in Article 9 of the Italian Constitution, modified in February 2022 to include reference to the concept of biodiversity, along with the new formulation of Article 41 regarding the protection of health and the environment – NBFC is born, the first national research center dedicated to biodiversity, coordinated by the National Research Council (CNR). NBFC is composed of an extensive national network of universities, research centers, associations, and other private and social entities, through which the Consortium has the possibility to undertake concrete, effective, and immediate actions to halt the loss of biodiversity, contributing to achieving the goal of protecting 30% of Italian territory by 2030, as requested by the European Union, and promoting, in science and politics, processes of conservation, restoration, and enhancement of biodiversity. Networks of connection will be created between the scientific community, national and local administrations, the business world, and the territories. New technologies will be developed to improve research, creating new job opportunities and training, as envisaged by the PNRR, a new class of researchers, namely the scientists of tomorrow.
The Plastic Buster research group is involved in Spoke 2, where it also lead the working package 3.
There are indeed a total of 5 working packages within Spoke 2:
WP1 – Medimapping priorities and filling knowledge gaps on emerging pollutants in the Mediterranean Sea ecosystems: services, resources, vulnerability, and resilience to natural and anthropogenic pressures
WP2 – Development of innovative effect-based monitoring:
Development of innovative biosensors for detecting different classes of chemicals and mixtures, and on the validation of a wide panel of diagnostic health tools for understanding interactions between emerging pollutants and multiple stressors
WP3 – Susceptibility to pollution-mediated loss of biodiversity in the Mediterranean and interactions of emerging pollutants with climate change:
Assessing the susceptibility to pollution-mediated loss of biodiversity in representative species, habitats or anthropogenic activities. Samples are analyzed in terms of presence of emerging pollutants and complex molecular end-points including the innovative exposome.
WP4 – Socio-economic-industrial innovation: zero pollution vision
WP5 – Setup of lighthouse demonstrators for innovative technologies to counteract pollution threat to biodiversity
PARTNERSHIP:
NBFC is being implemented by a consortium of 49 partners.
Project’s website: https://www.nbfc.it/