Dr Pablo Muñoz Rodríguez awarded the very first CETAF E-SCoRe Award

We are delighted to be able to congratulate Dr Pablo Muñoz Rodríguez, who has been awarded the very first CETAF E-SCoRe Award.

The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) award voices out the importance of taxonomy and natural science collections and the key role researchers in those fields play in providing science and society the significant knowledge and expertise that sets the groundwork for policy changes in addressing societal challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate change and health crises as is the current COVID-19 pandemic.   

By rewarding young European researchers, it contributes to research career development and research mobility and partnerships across Europe: young scientists and nature-based research Institutions constitute a driving force to building sustainable societies.

 

Upon receiving his award, Pablo said: “I am very happy and honoured to win this award. My fellow researchers and I have been working very hard during the last years on several fronts and, especially before coming to Oxford, with limited financial support or no funding at all. The fact that CETAF, a consortium of the most important natural history institutions in Europe, recognises this effort, makes me really proud of what we have achieved. It gives me an extra boost to carry on doing what I love most, taxonomy and systematics.”

The CETAF consortium constitutes a unique infrastructure and research network based on natural science collections. The collections held by the CETAF members facilitate fundamental geodiversity and biodiversity research, particularly in taxonomy and systematics, that enables ground-breaking discoveries across broad fields of science. The CETAF community jointly holds 1.5 billion specimens that represent about 80% of the world’s described species. These institutions and their researchers are custodians of this irreplaceable natural heritage that serves scientific and social progress.