Global Biodiversity Information Facility 2009 - 2011

Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat, Kobenhavn O

Investigators

Abstract

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is awarded a grant to cover the United States participation in the single largest biodiversity informatics initiative worldwide. GBIF provides access to over174 million primary biodiversity records and over 1 million name records, active development of informatics tools and software, and interaction with a global network of peers in biodiversity science and biodiversity informatics. GBIF provides a unique combination of rich biodiversity data and expertise in biodiversity informatics. GBIF offers a portal to the largest storehouse of primary, research-class biodiversity data?accessed from hundreds of institutions globally in a distributed fashion. GBIF-developed or GBIF-funded informatics tools are increasingly used in diverse informatics applications, ranging from dynamic ?encyclopedia of life? mashups to utilities for large-scale downloads of primary research data. This biodiversity collaboratory thus represents a catalyzing force for rich developments across an emerging field of informatics. The GBIF initiative offers a rich arena for global collaboration in biodiversity science. It includes dimensions of data repatriation to countries of origin, broad enabling of biodiversity conservation efforts, prioritizing areas for public health remediation, and other dimensions of policy-making. The GBIF effort has trained hundreds of scientists, both in the US and globally, in aspects of the emerging field of biodiversity informatics. As such, this initiative has rich global implications and positive impacts. Under this award, GBIF will seek to transform the working prototype into a fully functional information facility. Under the reorganization of GBIF into two thematic areas, Informatics and Participation, the GBIF Work Programme for 2009-2010 (http://www2.gbif.org/WP2009-10.pdf) lays out a bold suite of advances toward a comprehensive global biodiversity information infrastructure that will support both science and policy decision making, and that will ensure that GBIF Informatics prioritizes development in accordance with the needs expressed via the Participation thematic area on behalf of participants. The proposed advances, based on concrete stakeholder demands and years of experience with the informatics infrastructure so far, will bring the GBIF information resources from prototype to full operation as "the primary World Wide Web source for all data and information about biodiversity," as laid out in the 2007-2011 GBIF Strategic Plan.