GBIF ECAT 2005 – 2006 Request for Proposals
- GENERAL INFORMATION
- Programme Title:
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>Electronic Catalogue of Names of Known Organisms (ECAT)
- Synopsis of Programme:
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>For the global enhancement of biological research and resource management, a complete, centrally available list of the names applied to the organisms of the Earth is needed. This list, including names, synonymies and classification, should be freely and openly accessible to everybody at any time and should provide the user with reliable, authoritative data, organized in a structured manner.
ECAT – as part of GBIF – has the overall goal of compiling a catalogue of the world’s species to serve as a global resource, and with time, become an authority file for taxonomy. The Electronic Catalogue of Names will also serve as a look up resource, to make the integration of specimen and observation level data in the GBIF Network possible.
With time, the aim is to connect as much taxonomic and nomenclatural information as possible into an integrated system in which information retrieval is possible both via web services and via the GBIF data portal. With web services in place, it will be possible for third parties to build thematic portals that access a relevant sub-set of the data. Likewise, developers can make computer programmes that directly access the network and retrieve lists for many purposes.
The aim is to collaborate with everybody that has taxonomic or nomenclatural data to share and to make their data available.
- Rationale for ECAT 2005-06 RFP
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>In the global context, the resources that GBIF has available to fund taxonomic activities are extremely limited. It has always been recognized that the vast majority of funds needed to produce the catalogue of the world’s organisms would have to come from local and/or national funding sources.
GBIF’s global perspective puts it in a favourable position to initiate international collaborative projects and activities of a type often difficult for local or national governments to justify.
ECAT Seed Money awards are small grants that are given as supplements to projects compiling taxonomic data and making it available to the world via GBIF. The GBIF funding may cover no more than 30% of the projects’ total costs.
- Rationale
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>In the past the call has been focused on assisting those projects that would give the largest addition to ECAT for the least amount of money - the “low hanging fruit”. However, Participants have indicated in the Governing Board that GBIF needs more depth in areas that will be of use in larger-scale, timely concerns such as The International Pollinators Initiative (IPI) and The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC).
The GBIF Science Committee’s subcommittee on ECAT discussed the question of priorities at its yearly meeting in Brussels on April 21-22 2005 and recommended prioritization of taxonomic initiatives that deal with taxa under a number of cross-cutting issues.
An e-conference running over two weeks in the end of May and the start of June 2005 was convened in order to make the prioritization process as transparent and thorough as possible, and in order to achieve the widest possible input, involving the broader biodiversity community, including GBIF stakeholders. See a summary of the e-conference at http://www.gbif.org/prog/ecat/e_conference_report.
The ECAT priorities are likely to change over time in order to reflect the filling of gaps in taxonomic coverage of the Earth’s biota (See a draft gap analysis on www.gbif.org/prog/ecat/gap_analysis) and current priorities of the stakeholders.
- Priorities for 2005-06
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>The e-conference provided the basis for prioritizing the following cross-cutting issues for funding in 2005-06:
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>The decline in natural pollinators has been addressed by the Convention on Biological Diversity in its COP Decision III/11, and subsequently by the The São Paulo Declaration on Pollinators, resulting in the formation of The International Pollinators Initiative.
Proposals targeted to this priority in 2005-06 must develop catalogues for taxonomic groups in which pollinating organisms predominate and which are not already covered by taxonomic databases that are made available to the GBIF Network. Priority will be given to bees, but other groups could be considered.
Note that projects already being funded by GBIF are not eligible for further funding. Thus, catalogues of bees of Sub Saharan Africa are not eligible as they are being developed by the ECAT funded project “Electronic Catalogue of the bees (APOIDEA) of sub-Saharan Africa and the East Indian Ocean Islands”
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) includes 16 outcome-oriented global targets for completion by 2010. The ultimate and long-term objective of the Strategy is to halt the current and continuing loss of plant diversity. Target 1 of the GSPC is: “A widely accessible working list of known plant species, as a step towards a complete world flora”.
Three large groups, Asteraceae (Compositae), Malvaceae (including Tiliaceae and Sterculiaceae) and Melastomataceae, together containing nearly 10 % of vascular plant diversity, are a high priority for global checklist production if Target 1 is to be met. Asteraceae is by far the largest gap. Further information on Target 1 of the GSPC can be found at www.plants2010.org/targets/target1.html. Discussion of the major gaps and barriers preventing the completion of Target 1 can be found by following the ‘workshop’ link.
Proposals targeted to this priority in 2005-06 must develop taxonomies for the following taxa – or the parts of them which are not already (being) made available to the GBIF Network: Compositae, Malvales and Melastomataceae.
Note that projects already being funded by GBIF are not eligible for further funding. Thus, projects developing catalogues of European and North African Asteraceae are not eligible as an Asteraceae checklist of these areas ios being developed by the ECAT funded project “Implementation of an extensible register of the European and Mediterranean Compositae”
- Programme Officer
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>Contact Per de Place Bjørn [pdpbjorn_@If you can read this, please upgrade to a modern browser.gbif.org] for further information
- Eligibility
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>Open to all individuals and organizations. However, in order to ensure adequate fiscal management, all awards will be made to a relevant and appropriate institution (usually, the institution of the principal investigator).
Individuals and institutions must agree to make data developed through the project publicly available through the GBIF network either as the data are digitized or no later than two months after the GBIF funding ends.
- Award Information
- Type of award: Seed money
- Size of awards:
- Grants of up to 30% of the total project cost – see below (Section 1.8.1)
- Total funds available: $US 400,000 over the two years
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>A GBIF seed money award may be used to cover up to 30% of the total project cost; the remaining project cost must be funded by non-GBIF sources (See matching funds guidelines.).
- Matching Funds Guidelines
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>Amount of GBIF support per project: Up to 30% of the total project cost. The other 70% of costs may be made up through such items as:
- funds from non-GBIF sources to be or previously spent on the project
- salaries of people involved in the project that are paid by non-GBIF funds (to a percentage equal to the percentage of their working week spent directly on the project)
- volunteer time spent directly on the project calculated at an hourly wage equivalent
- in-kind support of the project (donation of hardware, software, travel costs, etc.)
- waiver of overhead costs normally charged by institutions
- Review process
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>The review process runs in two steps: This call requests short pre-proposals which will be evaluated by an independent review team which will be expected to separate fundable projects from projects that do not meet the criteria or will otherwise not be selected.
The fundable projects will be asked for full proposals that provide more detail on budget and implementation. These projects will be ranked according to the published priorities and the highest ranking will be selected for funding.
- Target Dates
- RFP released 28 June 2005.
- Pre-proposals due 15 September 2005.
- Full proposals will be requested from successful pre-proposers in October 2005
- Full Proposals due 30 November 2005.
- Full Proposals reviewed by 15 December 2005
- Successful Full Proposal applicants contacted by 31 December 2005.
- The PRE-proposal
To be successful, pre-proposals must:
- meet one or both of the Current GBIF priorities as listed in section 1.4
- follow the format outlined in section 4
- meet the following requirements
- Requirements
All proposals for projects must
- Adhere to the GBIF philosophy of free and open access
Projects must demonstrate commitment to making the resulting data freely available using recommended GBIF architectures http://circa.gbif.net/Public/irc/gbif/dadi/library?l=/architecture
- Address the overall goal of producing taxonomic datasets
The overall goal of the ECAT seed money programme is to develop databases of taxonomic information, i.e. regional or global taxonomic checklists and Global Species Databases at high standard and in a format that is interoperable with other data made available through GBIF. It is desirable that the taxonomic work reflects a consensus among workers of a given taxon and thus, the development of taxonomic databases is often done as a networking effort.
- Have a measurable product:
The product should have a demonstrable economic and/or scientific impact which should be stated in the proposal
That is, the proposed project should develop taxonomies for the taxa mentioned and the usefulness of the product to the mentioned international initiatives should be addressed.
The proposal should demonstrate how the product can be utilized by the international initiative and should preferably refer to indications that the product will be useful to the initiative e.g. through letters of support.
- Contain at least the following data fields for each species:
Accepted Scientific Name (with References)
Including, in separate fields
Genus
Specific epithet
Infraspecific epithet (if relevant)
Infraspecific marker (if relevant)
Author string
Author year
Synonyms (with References)
Including status of each name
Common names (with References)
Latest taxonomic scrutiny
Source database
Comment field
Family name
Taxonomy data can be served to the GBIF network in a number of ways; currently GBIF utilizes taxonomy data from the Catalogue of Life partnership (ITIS [http://www.itis.usda.gov] and Species 2000 [http://www.species2000.org]) but soon, tools will be released that will enable individual databases to serve data directly to GBIF using the Taxonomic Concept Transfer Schema (TCS [http://www.soc.napier.ac.uk/tdwg/index.php])
- PRE-PROPOSAL AND PROPOSAL REVIEW CRITERIA
These criteria – prioritized in the given sequence - will be used by both the pre-proposal and full proposal review teams for sifting the projects
- Goodness of fit to the characteristics outlined above – explanations should be provided where appropriate as to how the project meets the requirements.
- Scientific Merit
- Projects that incorporate collaboration between or among institutions in order to produce datasets, especially if these collaborations include partnerships between developed and developing world institutions
- Leveraging additional long term funding to support the cataloguing of the world’s organisms
- Adherence to the preparation and submission instructions below.
- Cost-efficiency. Proposals should give metrics so as to facilitate as much as possible the comparison of projects.
- Projects will be favourably considered if, in addition, they demonstrate a potential for at least one of the following:
- Earliest possible access to large data sets
- Bringing together regional datasets to form a global species database (GSD).
- Training and capacity building - Projects that have a component of enhancing the capability of one or more of the institutions taking part in the projects, rendering them better equipped for production of species databases and making them available on the internet. Such enhancement might include the training of personnel in the use of computer systems for developing names databases
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>Pre-proposals submissions will only be accepted via e-mail to ECAT_PROPOSALS_@If you can read this, please upgrade to a modern browser.GBIF.ORG using the following outline. Pre-proposals that do not meet these requirements will not be considered. (Pre-proposals that are not e-mailed by midnight 15 August 15 2005, local time of the applicant, will not be considered)
- REQUIRED FORMAT OF PRE-PROPOSAL:
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>PAGE 1:
Title for Proposed Project
Contact Information for Principal Investigator
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>Name:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>Address:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>Telephone:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>FAX:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>Email:
Contact information for Managing Institution
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>Institution Name:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>Address:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="36"></spacer>Institutional Contact Person
<spacer type="horizontal" size="72"></spacer>Name:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="72"></spacer>Telephone:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="72"></spacer>Fax:
<spacer type="horizontal" size="72"></spacer>Email:
If Applicable, a List of Partner Institutions
PAGE 2:
Project Summary – An abstract of the proposal (200 words or less)
PAGES 3-6:
Project description (Maximum four pages) - A description of the proposed outcome (product) of the project.
Include:
- Specific description of the way(s) in which the project possesses the characteristics (meets the requirements and fills the pririties) listed above.
- Metrics (to demonstrate cost- and effort-efficiency) of the amount of taxonomic information made available through the project. Please specify the estimated number of names or species to be made available, making clear which names or species are made available through the proposed project and which are already found in existing databases on the web. The inclusiveness of the data, e.g. to what extent the data contain information on synonyms, literature references etc. should be specified. Specify the taxonomic coverage of the project and describe the projects value to science and/or society. Describe and take into account possible overlap with existing taxonomy projects.
- Answers to the following questions:
- What is/are the user community(ies) that would be interested in this product of the project?
- How will the proposed outcome benefit biodiversity science, particularly from a global perspective?
- How will the data be updated and maintained into the future (that is, if changes in information are made, how will this be carried into the publicly accessible record)?
- How will the product be made freely available using the recommended GBIF architecture, particularly addressing the issues of data compatibility and interoperability using recommended GBIF standards (See: http://circa.gbif.net/Public/irc/gbif/dadi/library?l=/architecture)
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>PAGE 7:
Preliminary project budget – A one-page preliminary project budget calculated in US dollars (may include salaries or wages, travel, equipment and supplies, and other [must be explained]) that shows how GBIF’s 30% support would be spent, and how that support fits together with the other 70% of the project costs (please note the description of allowable cost-share items, above). Clearly indicate budget items for which GBIF funds would be used.
- Full Proposals
<spacer type="vertical" size="2"></spacer>Full proposals will be requested from successful pre-proposals by 15 Sep 2005.
The full proposals will be due on 15 Nov 2005.
The Request for full proposals will include instructions on the format of the full proposal. It will include a more detailed budget, more specific indications of partnering commitments and a more detailed project description, including timeline and milestones.
