The correct identification of organisms is fundamental not only for the assessment and the conservation of biodiversity, but also in agriculture, forestry, the food and pharmaceutical industries, forensic biology, and in the broad field of formal and informal education at all levels. In the last decades, important advances have taken place in the way identification is carried out, from molecular and biochemical methods of rapid identification to the development of interactive identification systems based on morpho-anatomical data.
This congress provides an overview of recent advances in this field. It stimulates integration of existing methods and systems, fosters communication amongst different research groups, and lays the foundations for integrated projects in the next decade. The congress is organised jointly by three large European projects dedicated to biodiversity and/or biological identification: KeyToNature, EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy), and STERNA (Semantic Web-based Thematic European Reference Network Application).