Dr Axel Paulsch is a German geo-ecologist working for the Institute for Biodiversity Network based in Regensburg, Germany. He is working at the science-policy interface in different projects and followed the development of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) from the very start. He was part of the German delegation in the founding meetings and several plenary meetings of IPBES. He does capacity building workshops on IPBES especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and teaches about Multilateral Environmental Agreements as part of the international master programme ‚Global Change Ecology‘ at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Daria Gettueva is a master student of this programme from Kyrgyzstan and translated the text into Russian.