Representatives of the SELINA project attended the first Bulgarian Demo hub meeting for the GREEN TALENT project. The event was held on 25 February 2026 at the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water.

GREEN TALENT is a project that strengthens biodiversity and climate capacity, particularly in Widening Countries (Malta, Greece, Cyprus, and Bulgaria), by connecting academic and non-academic experts through training, collaboration, and demonstration hubs. Similarly to SELINA, it promotes knowledge exchange and international cooperation to support biodiversity protection and the green transition.

The event was organised by the National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NIGGG-BAS), the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NMNH-BAS), and Pensoft Publishers, in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Water. 

It focused on the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) reports as a vital tool for integrating scientific knowledge on biodiversity and climate change into policy and practice.

During the meeting, SELINA was presented as the existing community of practice that the Bulgarian Demonstration Hub builds on by integrating museum and biodiversity records, sharing biodiversity data at the science-policy interface, and incorporating IPBES and IPCC outputs for public and private decision-making.

The workshop included an interactive hands-on session. The participants, representing a diverse range of stakeholders from the public and private sectors, academia, and civil society, including representatives of SELINA, were divided into two groups to work on key IPBES assessment reports: the Transformative Change Assessment and the Business and Biodiversity Assessment. 

The groups discussed how these reports can be applied in practice, identified key challenges, and explored possible actions to improve their uptake.

The session concluded with group presentations and a networking discussion to support future collaboration, reflecting the broader goal of the demonstration hubs to strengthen partnerships and advance sustainable solutions for biodiversity and climate challenges.