Developing a vision for the future of systematics at the Society of Systematic Biologists conference

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Systematics lies at the heart of biodiversity science, and so identifying and catalyzing opportunities for connections among systematists, and between systematists and scientists in other fields, will be crucial if we are to unravel the complexity of life on Earth, from molecules to ecosystems and beyond. The field of systematics is advancing at a rapid pace, particularly as we are now living squarely in the age of "big data". This award will support a set of facilitated activities at the Society of Systematic Biologists meeting January 3-6, 2020 at the University of Florida that will generate a multi-year vision for priorities within the systematics community, focusing particularly on identifying current grand challenges and opportunities and developing plans for how the community can respond. Part of the discussion will focus on interactions between systematics and other fields in biology, as well as geology and computer science. Invitations to participate in the discussions will be posted on the conference website and published in the program; additional targeted outreach efforts will be made to ensure broad participation. Funds will support attendance at the meeting by a diverse range of participants, particularly early career researchers, students, and scientists at all stages who belong to groups underrepresented in systematics and computational biology. Products resulting from the workshops will be broadly and freely disseminated via scientific publications and websites.This meeting is an opportunity for the broader systematics and biodiversity science community to discuss relevant issues in the field of systematics and to provide hands-on training in new methods and their theoretical background to enable researchers to capitalize on recent advances in data collection and analysis. The activities focused on developing a vision for the future of systematics are particularly timely and important given the crucial role systematics plays in enabling comparative studies and interdisciplinary science. These conversations will be designed and implemented in collaboration with Knowinnovation, maximizing the opportunity for participants to engage in creative and productive conversations about the future of systematics and to develop plans for moving a new vision forward.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.