The EUROMAMMALS bottom-up initiative has pioneered collaborative science in spatial animal ecology since 2007. It involves dozens of institutions from Europe and beyond, organised in multiple networks, to address scientific, management and conservation questions regarding terrestrial mammal species in Europe, with a focus on spatial ecology. The main goal is to create a scientific network to investigate biological and ecological questions that can be addressed only by analyzing data across populations and with the support of the field knowledge gained by researchers working with animals in different conditions. The databases and related data management infrastructure ensure the collection, quality control, standardization and sharing of data and transparent information necessary to actualize the collaboration between scientists and produce science. The Terms of Use underpinning EUROMAMMALS has been purposefully and specifically based on the collaborative nature of the initiative, allowing the partners to join the network, while maintaining the responsibility for their data and for actively engaging into the scientific projects. These characteristics hugely foster the preparation of collaborative scientific publications, not only providing a larger and more articulated dataset, but also promoting scientific debates and discussions flowing into novel conceptual frameworks.

EUROMAMMALS is supporting itself with a scientific crowd-funding system, with institutions contributing to the initiative when and for how much much they can, yet the continuous and relevant support of the EUROMAMMALS sponsor Vectronic Aerospace GmbH has been and is instrumental to the long-term sustainability of the initiative.

Last but not least, EUROMAMMALS supports and strives to fulfill FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable; Wilkinson et al., 2016) and TRUST (Transparency, Responsibility, User focus, Sustainability and Technology; Lin et al., 2020) principles for scientific data and metadata digital repository trustworthiness, and collaborates with International initiative promoting their applicability to animal ecology data sources, such as the International Bio-Logging Society.

See also Urbano & Cagnacci (2021) for more information.

The EURODEER project has been the first EUROMAMMALS network. It stemmed from seminal discussions between a group of researchers from Fondazione Edmund Mach and the University of Lyon at the European Roe deer meeting in 2007, regarding the best practices of GPS data management, while envisioning the advantages of data sharing on a common and efficient platform. The experience gained at Edmund Mach Foundation through the project ISAMUD provided the technical basis for the development of a new software platform to meet these requirements. Several other research groups soon indicated interest in the opportunity of a common European roe deer data repository. Since then, the Eurodeer network first, and many other networks of institutions then, were created and expanded based on the same principle: sharing data and knowledge to improve research and management of European mammal species, while working openly, collaboratively, and with an horizontal, informal and friendly interaction between partners.