Client: Environmental Protection Agency

BioChange is an integrative, multi-disciplinary research framework to support national and local biodiversity policy in Ireland. It is administered by BEC Consultants. Core research within the project addresses the protection and management of ecological resources in the context of pressures that might lead to environmental change by focusing on habitat fragmentation and loss, impacts of non-native species, climate change, pollution and resource management. The aims of the project included developing fundamental biodiversity research and capacity building in taxonomic skills, as well as the development of biodiversity indicators and biomonitoring tools.

Two cross-cutting research projects targeted the production of inventories and output of taxonomic data and the understanding of socio-economic processes that shape biodiversity policies. BioChange also had the aim to bring together groups of researchers from normally disparate areas to develop a coherent research framework that could develop strategically beyond the current project funding.