TETTRIs Launches the 3rd installment of Taxonomy Recognition Day to Shine a Light on the Science Behind Biodiversity Protection

The EU-funded TETTRIs project declares May 23rd as an annual Taxonomy Recognition Day and calls on scientists, institutions, and the public to join the #NameItToSaveIt campaign.

 

Every species has a story. But without a name, that story may never be told. On 23 May, a coalition of Europe’s leading natural history museums, botanical gardens, universities, and research institutions — leads the third annual Taxonomy Recognition Day, a continent-wide call to celebrate taxonomy: the foundational science that names, classifies, and describes the diversity of life on Earth.

A Date with Meaning

The TETTRIs project (Transforming European Taxonomy through Training, Research and Innovation), an EU-funded initiative under the HORIZON programme, has established May 23rd as Taxonomy Recognition Day, an annual occasion dedicated to raising public awareness of taxonomy, the scientific discipline responsible for naming, classifying, and describing life on Earth. The accompanying campaign, #NameItToSaveIt, invites researchers, institutions, students, and members of the public to take part through events, educational activities, and social media engagement.

May 23rd was chosen to mark the birthday of Carl Linnaeus (1707), the Swedish botanist widely regarded as the father of modern taxonomy and the originator of the binomial nomenclature system still in use today. The date also falls the day after the United Nations’ International Day for Biological Diversity, observed on May 22nd. The proximity is deliberate: the premise underpinning Taxonomy Recognition Day is that biodiversity cannot be effectively monitored, managed, or protected without first knowing what species exist and what they are called.

How to Get Involved

TETTRIs is calling on a wide range of participants to join the #NameItToSaveIt movement — not only on May 23rd, but throughout the year. Suggested activities include:

• Sharing a species of personal or scientific significance on social media, along with its name and the story behind it
• Organising or attending events at natural history museums, botanical gardens, universities, or research institutions
• Using the hashtag #NameItToSaveIt across platforms to contribute to the campaign’s visibility
• Connecting with TETTRIs through official channels for resources, materials, and partnership opportunities

Taxonomy at a Critical Moment for Europe

The launch of Taxonomy Recognition Day comes at a point when the importance of taxonomic knowledge has never been greater,  and the gap between need and capacity has never been more apparent. The 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework commits signatory countries, including EU Member States, to implementing comprehensive biodiversity monitoring programmes by 2030. The European Green Deal, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and the Nature Restoration Law all set binding or indicative targets for halting and reversing biodiversity loss, targets that depend on the ability to identify, track, and document species across ecosystems.

Yet the scientific infrastructure required to meet these commitments is under strain. It is estimated that only around 15% of global biodiversity is currently described and documented. More than one million species are threatened with extinction worldwide, many of them still unknown to science. At the same time, the pool of trained taxonomists — the specialists who carry out the work of naming and classifying organisms — is itself declining, with expertise concentrated in a small number of institutions and unevenly distributed across Europe.
As Ana Casino, Technical Coordinator for the TETTRIs project, has noted: 

“Taxonomy is more than just naming species — it’s about understanding the ties that bind every living thing on Earth. With species vanishing at an unprecedented rate, the work of taxonomists has never been more urgent. How can you protect something if you don’t know its name?”

TETTRIs: Transforming European Taxonomy

TETTRIs brings together 17 partner institutions from across Europe, including leading natural history museums, botanical gardens, and research organisations, under a shared mandate to strengthen taxonomic knowledge and infrastructure in support of the EU’s biodiversity governance commitments. The project is funded under the HORIZON programme and runs from December 2022 to May 2026, with a total budget of approximately 6 million euros. The project works across three axes: improving access to taxonomic tools and reference collections, building training and capacity for the next generation of taxonomists and parataxonomists, and fostering collaboration between professional institutions, citizen scientists, and policymakers. Taxonomy Recognition Day sits at the intersection of all three: it is a public-facing initiative designed to make taxonomy visible to audiences beyond the scientific community and to build the social and political will needed to sustain it.

What happened last year?

The 2nd Taxonomy Recognition Day, held on May 23rd 2025, demonstrated the scale of interest in the initiative. More than 30 institutions across Europe participated, from the Canary Islands to Norway, and from Portugal to Greece. Events included expert lectures, public debates, behind-the-scenes museum tours, hands-on identification workshops, and networking sessions for both specialists and general audiences.

On social media, the #NameItToSaveIt campaign was shared by individuals and organisations across the globe, reaching a combined audience of over 700,000 people. The response confirmed both the appetite for public engagement with taxonomy and the potential of a coordinated, annual moment to build on.

Further information, including resources for event organisers and participants, is available at tettris.eu/trd. For media enquiries and partnership requests, please contact Michael Magee at magee@snm.ku.dk.

 

Notes on the project

TETTRIs (Transforming European Taxonomy through Training, Research and Innovation) is an EU HORIZON Innovation Action running from December 2022 to May 2026. It is coordinated by 18 partner institutions across Europe, including natural history museums, botanical gardens, and research bodies. Grant Agreement number: 101081903. More information: www.tettris.eu.

 

Taxonomy Recognition Day is observed annually on May 23rd. The #NameItToSaveIt campaign runs year-round. For event resources and participation guidelines, visit tettris.eu/trd.

Follow TETTRIs: @TETTRIsEU on X/Twitter and LinkedIn.

 

MEDIA CONTACT

Michael Magee
Communications Lead, TETTRIs
Email: magee@snm.ku.dk