Global to Regional: Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the LAC region

PLOS, ANABELA

Río de Janeiro

Workshop; Latin America and the Caribbean Scientific Data Management Workshop; 2018

International Council for Science World Data System (ICSU-WDS)

GBIF is an open-data research infrastructure funded by the world?sgovernments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere access to data about alltypes of life on Earth. In 2011, the GBIF Governing Board approved theestablishment of the Nodes Steering Group, which includes representatives fromeach of the six regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean,North America and Oceania. The GBIF network draws all the sources together through the use of theDarwin Core standard, which forms the basis of GBIF.org?s index of hundreds ofmillions of species occurrence records. Publishers provide open access to theirdatasets using machine-readable Creative Commons licence designations, allowingscientists, researchers and others to apply the data in hundreds ofpeer-reviewed publications and policy papers each year. Many of these analyseswould not be possible without this.GBIF provides differentoptions for interaction between the region?s members:? Regional meetings (funded by GBIF)? Biodiversity Information for Development -BID- meetings andworkshop (funded by the European Union)? Capacity enhancement support program -CESP- mentoringactivities, support for regional events, GBIF advocacy actions, documentationand promotion of data use (funded by GBIF). All the GBIF?s members are encouraged to collaborate within theirassigned or selected regions upon joining the network. Regional meetings, heldeither annually or biannually, allow Participants to address common tasks andissues, set regional priorities and stimulate specialization within the region.