Memorandum of Understanding signed and GBIF established.

First governing board meeting for GBIF. Christoph Häuser elected Chair and Kunio Iwatsuki elected Vice-Chair.

Ebbe Neilsen Prize created. This annual award is given to a promising researcher who combines research on the variety of living things with developments in informatics.

Denmark chosen as host country for GBIF Secretariat at the organisation's second governing board meeting.

James Edwards chosen as Executive Secretary at the third governing board meeting held in Paris, France.

Fourth governing board meeting in Canberra, Australia. The first annual Ebbe Neilsen prize is awarded to Dr Nozomi Ytow, Assistant Professor at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Dr. Ytow was awarded the prize for the development of the Nomencurator, a new database model for tracking scientific names, and how the conception and use of these names changes through time.

Fifth governing board meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica. GBIF's Supplementary Fund created. This fund is designed to promote the free and open availability of biodiversity data and information. Any organisation, foundation, individual or agency can contribute to the fund and their donation can go towards a specific activity or to general projects.

GBIF launches its communications portal and helpdesk.

Secretariat building completed in Copenhagen; staff move in.

GBIF and the Danish node of GBIF (DanBIF) held a biodiversity exhibition called the "millions of species", which displayed a number of species and featured computers on which people could see demonstrations of data searches and how the information could be used.

Sixth GBIF governing board meeting held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

GBIF Secretariat building inaugurated by Denmark's Prince Henrik.

Second Ebbe Neilsen prize given to Dr Stefan Schröder of Bonn, Germany. Dr. Schröder developed a method for identifying bee species by imaging their wings and analysing the images on a computer.

First GBIF demonstration project launched.

Memorandum of Cooperation with the Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat which says that both organisations will engage in mutually beneficial activities.

UDDI registry opened and first data provider registered.

First GBIF training of data providers in Stockholm, Sweden.

Seventh governing board meeting in Tsukuba, Japan.

Memorandum of Cooperation signed with the Catalogue of Life, which is one provider of the taxonomic work needed to sort all of the names of organisms in an authoritative manner, which can sometimes take a very long time. The agreement said that GBIF would help the Catalogue of Life promote more rapid progress of their work.

Prototype data portal launched.

Eighth governing board meeting, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Third Ebbe Nielsen prize awarded to Johan Nilsson from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Mr Nilsson developed "Artportalen", or Species Gateway, an Internet portal that allows spontaneous reporting of sightings of birds, butterflies, moths, plants and fungi by anyone who wants to contribute biodiversity data. This Species Gateway will soon have modules for reporting amphibians, reptiles and mammals.

Independent, external Third-year Review of GBIF initiated.

Ninth governing board meeting is held in Wellington, New Zealand.

Meeting held with representatives of all the international codes of biological nomenclature to discuss activities of mutual benefit.

Herbarium digitisation workshop is held in Chania, Greece. Participants at this workshop discussed how to use new technologies to automate the process of digitisation in order to not only speed-up the process but also reduce the costs.

Third-year Review report is released. Report states that GBIF is the right initiative at the right time with the right goals.

Workshop entitled Building Species Banks: How Shall We Shape the Future? is held in Amsterdam. Participants discussed internet user needs for species information, and GBIF's possible role in meeting these needs.

Tenth governing board meeting, Brussels, Belgium

Fourth Ebbe Nielsen prize awarded to Dr. Pablo Goloboff of Argentina. Dr. Goloboff designed computer programs that can pinpoint regions of the world that are home to a particularly unique range of animals and plants.

Eleventh governing board meeting, Stockholm, Sweden. Consideration of a new Memorandum of Understanding and Strategic Plan for GBIF begins.

David Penman (New Zealand) elected Governing Board Chair; Hideaki Sagawara (Japan) and Christoph Häuser (Germany) elected Vice Chairs.

Twelfth governing board meeting, Cape Town, South Africa. Consideration of a the new Memorandum of Understanding, Strategic/Operational Plans for GBIF, and structure of the scale of contributions from Voting Participants.

John Wieczorek (United States) awarded the 2006 Ebbe Nielsen Prize. Mr. Wieczorek has been instrumental in the development of several of the standards and protocols that underpin GBIF biodiversity informatics.