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The European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action ESMERALDA aimed at developing guidance and a flexible methodology for Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) to support the EU member states in the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy's Target 2 Action 5. ESMERALDA's key tasks included network creation, stakeholder engagement, enhancing ecosystem services mapping and assessment methods across various spatial scales and value domains, work in case studies and support of EU member states in MAES implementation. Thus ESMERALDA aimed at integrating various project outcomes around four major strands: i) Networking, ii) Policy, iii) Research and iv) Application. The objective was to provide guidance for integrated ecosystem service mapping and assessment that can be used for sustainable decision-making in policy, business, society, practice and science at EU, national and regional levels. This article presents the overall ESMERALDA approach of integrating the above-mentioned project components and outcomes and provides an overview of how the enhanced methods were applied and how they can be used to support MAES implementation in the EU member states. Experiences with implementing such a large pan-European Coordination and Support Action in the context of EU policy are discussed and recommendations for future actions are given. This article is part of: Mapping and assessing ecosystems services. ESMERALDA special issue.

The European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action ESMERALDA aimed at developing guidance and a flexible methodology for Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) to support the EU member states in the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy's Target 2 Action 5. ESMERALDA's key tasks included network creation, stakeholder engagement, enhancing ecosystem services mapping and assessment methods across various spatial scales and value domains, work in case studies and support of EU member states in MAES implementation. Thus ESMERALDA aimed at integrating various project outcomes around four major strands: i) Networking, ii) Policy, iii) Research and iv) Application. The objective was to provide guidance for integrated ecosystem service mapping and assessment that can be used for sustainable decision-making in policy, business, society, practice and science at EU, national and regional levels. This article presents the overall ESMERALDA approach of integrating the above-mentioned project components and outcomes and provides an overview of how the enhanced methods were applied and how they can be used to support MAES implementation in the EU member states. Experiences with implementing such a large pan-European Coordination and Support Action in the context of EU policy are discussed and recommendations for future actions are given.

The European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action ESMERALDA aimed at developing guidance and a flexible methodology for Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) to support the EU member states in the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy’s Target 2 Action 5. ESMERALDA’s key tasks included network creation, stakeholder engagement, enhancing ecosystem services mapping and assessment methods across various spatial scales and value domains, work in case studies and support of EU member states in MAES implementation. Thus ESMERALDA aimed at integrating various project outcomes around four major strands: i) Networking, ii) Policy, iii) Research and iv) Application. The objective was to provide guidance for integrated ecosystem service mapping and assessment that can be used for sustainable decision-making in policy, business, society, practice and science at EU, national and regional levels. This article presents the overall ESMERALDA approach of integrating the above-mentioned project components and outcomes and provides an overview of how the enhanced methods were applied and how they can be used to support MAES implementation in the EU member states. Experiences with implementing such a large pan-European Coordination and Support Action in the context of EU policy are discussed and recommendations for future actions are given., One Ecosystem, 3, ISSN:2367-8194

Deliverable D4.4 “Open Science Publication Technologies” is a software deliverable. It presents the Agricultural and Food Models Journal (AFMJ) (Fig. 1) in the context of stimulating open science and open data publishing. The concept of “open science” refers to a whole range of issues around opening up the research cycle, the most important of which are: (1) Open access, (2) Open data, (3) Free and Open-source software, (4) Reproducible research, (5) Open peer-review, (6) Open science policies, (7) Open funding, (8) Open science evaluation, (9) Open science tools and (10) Open education. Among these, open publication of scientific results, data, software and other research objects is at the forefront of the open science movement. Within the AGINFRA+ project a new journal – the Agricultural and Food Modelling Journal (AFMJ) – will be launched to catalyse the publication of research data in the field, as well as in an attempt to stimulate other publications from across the research cycle including software descriptions, model descriptions, data management plans and others. The journal will draw and build on existing technologies such as the ARPHA Journal Publishing Platform and the ReFindit tools designed to answer the needs of the rapidly developing open access, open data an open science trends in sharing and reusing scientific results. ARPHA is the first of its kind end-to-end publishing solution specifically developed to support fully XML workflows, automated data import and dissemination tools, novel article templates and other features stimulating open science. Progress: In the first 12 months of the project the concept and functionalities of the journal have been discussed and continuously developed to allow for plans to be put in place in terms of: - Focus and Scope – draft text available, to be updated prior to launch. - Design and graphic identity – journal logo designed, ongoing discussions on suggested journal website design - Templates – innovative article formats decided, possibility to add new due to the dynamic nature of ARPHA. - Metadata standards and mapping - AFMJ will adhere to these standards taking into account described structure and requirements of FSK-ML while building its article templates and metadata requirements. - Journal introduction plan – preliminary marketing activities planned. Next steps: - Journal launch in 2018 - Templates continuously updated - Marketing strategy updated and executed The deliverable has been created on the public space of the AGINFRA+ Wiki and is accessible through the following link: https://support.d4science.org/projects/aginfraplus_wiki/wiki/D44_-_Open_Science_Publication_Technologies

The European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action ESMERALDA aimed at developing guidance and a flexible methodology for Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) to support the EU member states in the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy’s Target 2 Action 5. ESMERALDA’s key tasks included network creation, stakeholder engagement, enhancing ecosystem services mapping and assessment methods across various spatial scales and value domains, work in case studies and support of EU member states in MAES implementation. Thus ESMERALDA aimed at integrating various project outcomes around four major strands: i) Networking, ii) Policy, iii) Research and iv) Application. The objective was to provide guidance for integrated ecosystem service mapping and assessment that can be used for sustainable decision-making in policy, business, society, practice and science at EU, national and regional levels. This article presents the overall ESMERALDA approach of integrating the above-mentioned project components and outcomes and provides an overview of how the enhanced methods were applied and how they can be used to support MAES implementation in the EU member states. Experiences with implementing such a large pan-European Coordination and Support Action in the context of EU policy are discussed and recommendations for future actions are given.

Deliverable D4.4 “Open Science Publication Technologies” is a software deliverable. It presents the Agricultural and Food Models Journal (AFMJ) (Fig. 1) in the context of stimulating open science and open data publishing. The concept of “open science” refers to a whole range of issues around opening up the research cycle, the most important of which are: (1) Open access, (2) Open data, (3) Free and Open-source software, (4) Reproducible research, (5) Open peer-review, (6) Open science policies, (7) Open funding, (8) Open science evaluation, (9) Open science tools and (10) Open education. Among these, open publication of scientific results, data, software and other research objects is at the forefront of the open science movement. Within the AGINFRA+ project a new journal – the Agricultural and Food Modelling Journal (AFMJ) – will be launched to catalyse the publication of research data in the field, as well as in an attempt to stimulate other publications from across the research cycle including software descriptions, model descriptions, data management plans and others. The journal will draw and build on existing technologies such as the ARPHA Journal Publishing Platform and the ReFindit tools designed to answer the needs of the rapidly developing open access, open data an open science trends in sharing and reusing scientific results. ARPHA is the first of its kind end-to-end publishing solution specifically developed to support fully XML workflows, automated data import and dissemination tools, novel article templates and other features stimulating open science. Progress: In the first 12 months of the project the concept and functionalities of the journal have been discussed and continuously developed to allow for plans to be put in place in terms of: - Focus and Scope – draft text available, to be updated prior to launch. - Design and graphic identity – journal logo designed, ongoing discussions on suggested journal website design - Templates – innovative article formats decided, possibility to add new due to the dynamic nature of ARPHA. - Metadata standards and mapping - AFMJ will adhere to these standards taking into account described structure and requirements of FSK-ML while building its article templates and metadata requirements. - Journal introduction plan – preliminary marketing activities planned. Next steps: - Journal launch in 2018 - Templates continuously updated - Marketing strategy updated and executed The deliverable has been created on the public space of the AGINFRA+ Wiki and is accessible through the following link: https://support.d4science.org/projects/aginfraplus_wiki/wiki/D44_-_Open_Science_Publication_Technologies