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A large proportion of European biodiversity today depends on habitat provided by low‐intensity farming practices, yet this resource is declining as European agriculture intensifies. Within the European Union, particularly the central and eastern new member states have retained relatively large areas of species‐rich farmland, but despite increased investment in nature conservation here in recent years, farmland biodiversity trends appear to be worsening. Although the high biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland has long been reported, the amount of research in the international literature focused on farmland biodiversity in this region remains comparatively tiny, and measures within the EU Common Agricultural Policy are relatively poorly adapted to support it. In this opinion study, we argue that, 10 years after the accession of the first eastern EU new member states, the continued under‐representation of the low‐intensity farmland in Central and Eastern Europe in the international literature and EU policy is impeding the development of sound, evidence‐based conservation interventions. The biodiversity benefits for Europe of existing low‐intensity farmland, particularly in the central and eastern states, should be harnessed before they are lost. Instead of waiting for species‐rich farmland to further decline, targeted research and monitoring to create locally appropriate conservation strategies for these habitats is needed now.

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99 A Focus on Science-Policy Interfaces of Research ProjectsThe loss of biodiversity continues unabated due to anthropogenic pressures linked notably to economic and population growth, land-and sea-use changes, invasive species, climate change and the lack of adequate policies addressing them (GBO3 2010). Indeed, some authors have attributed the continued loss of biodiversity to "a collective failure of the science-policy process" (Larigauderie and Mooney 2010 b, p. 1), or the "knowing-doing gap", or the divide between sci ence and policy in the context of conservation biology (Knight et al. 2008). (2009). They may also concentrate on setting up permant institutions such as IPBES to provide further assessments and other policy support activities, to establish continuous exchange platforms. Sim ilar approaches exist at the regional and national scale, for example, in the work of national advisory bodies. Yet an important level at which science and policy interact is in small-to large-scale research projects. These projects can help align research processes and outcomes to the needs of policy makers, other stakeholders and society in general, enabling a direct exchange of knowledge and perspectives. > 100Carsten Neßhöver, Johannes Timaeus, Heidi Wittmer et al. FORUMBiodiversity loss is a"wicked problem". As with many environmental challenges, it cannot be solved merely by established approaches to policy, science and linking science and policy making (Sharman and Mlambo 2012), but calls for transdisciplinary approaches (Hirsch Hadorn et al. 2008, Jahn et al. 2012) to research. By transdisciplinary approaches we understand work that "moves beyond the domain of disciplinarity, generating new approaches to scientific knowledge production that either transcend the formalism of a discipline altogether and/or operationalize integrative collaborations between academics and non-academics, such as local communities and/or policy-makers, as a core part of the scientific work" (Farrell et al. 2013, p. 36).In other words, the biodiversity issue calls for direct sciencesociety interaction between researchers and stakeholders such as policy makers as well as those using the benefits of, caring for or being constrained in their activities by biodiversity. Such direct interactions are a key aspect of the overall SPI landscape, including SPI activities of research projects. Even if most projects will not follow a complete transdiciplinary approach and only take up elements from it, they, nonetheless, contribute to mainstreaming the idea of transdisciplinarity.In this paper, we report and reflect on insights gained from 34 in-depth interviews on five European Union (EU) research projects 1 to capture all experiences gained in designing and conducting SPI activities at project level and to better understand their challenges and potentials. These insights were complemented by a workshop discussion on lessons learned from the interviews on SPI activities in EU projects. The workshop brought together scientists with experience from o...

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