Xavier Houard

Background

About Xavier Houard

I am naturalist, ecologist, keen on small animals and functional interactions, I was trained professionally in the network of Natural Heritage Conservatories. I am involved in various local naturalist inventory initiatives, collaborative atlas approaches in Normandy then various national entomological knowledge networks, notably at the French Society of Odonatology (the study of Dragonflies) where I was elected to the office. In March 2010, I joined the Office for Insects and their Environment (Opie) to take care of the coordination of the first National Action Plans (PNA). And in 2012, Opie entrusted me with coordinating the team in charge of studies. Within the management committee, I was responsible for the division which manages “conservation studies and projects”. This skills center brings together around twenty people whose staff spread over two sites (Montpellier and Guyancourt) carry out four types of missions: entomological expertise resulting from field surveys (diagnostics, inventories and monitoring), management of research projects conservation, professional training in entomology and Citizen Science programs (Surveys, eBMS, STELI, SPIPOLL and Qubs). In November 2024, I joined the National Museum of Natural History (Paris) as coordinator of Policy support and scientific advice. Within the "Expertise department", my main responsibilities include: the organization and coordination of responses to requests from the Museum by institutional actors (Ministries and National Offices); the development and implementation of monitoring of the Museum's expertise activity, including the definition of procedures and the establishment of indicators; the identification, organization and promotion of the establishment's various productions (methodologies, training, digital tools, etc.) among economic players, in conjunction with the partners concerned; the promotion, internally and externally, of the establishment's expertise productions and the contribution to the internal eco-responsibility approach (Sobriety-CSR), particularly with regard to the consideration of biodiversity in ecological management Museum sites.