In March 2017, the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung hosted a workshop on Exploring Synergies and Sustainability for Biodiversity Information Systems. Attendees representing global data infrastructures, national data centres and major research institutions agreed that the global community needed to develop a shared mechanism for planning, delivering and sustaining a linked and open global biodiversity data infrastructure.
However, they did not determine what form such a mechanism should take or whether the desired outcomes would require a sustainable long-term, persistent decision-making body or could be achieved through shorter time-bound collaboration.
GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) organized a follow-up workshop to explore how such a mechanism might operate as part of its 2018 Work Programme. The July 2018 event, GBIC2: the 2nd Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference, took place in Copenhagen and hosted 103 representatives from key global, regional, national and subnational networks, agencies, organizations and institutions.
GBIC2 attendees reached consensus on a multifaceted vision for interconnected solutions that address existing limitations and represents several shared ambitions. As part of its administrative and technical support for this exploratory phase, the GBIF Secretariat encourages you to use this forum to discuss the five initial steps that GBIC2 attendees identified—or any other relevant points—to advance the concept of this proposed ‘alliance for biodiversity knowledge’:
- Expand engagement
- Evaluate models
- Clarify scope and target outcomes
- Map stakeholders
- Adopt proof-of-concept projects
We will welcome and encourage comments and questions in languages other than English throughout this process—please make use of translations engines from Google, Bing or elsewhere to reduce any linguistic barriers.