GBIF awards six capacity enhancement grants for 2015

Projects in Africa, Latin America and Europe will engage 19 Participants.

GBIF has selected six projects to receive support through its capacity enhancement programme in 2015. The projects involve 16 national Participants, three organizational Participants and other partners to address specific capacity needs in Africa, Latin America and Europe.

The selected projects focus on mobilization, access and use of digital biodiversity data as well as translation of essential technical and training documentation.

The projects to receive support this year are:

  • A Latin American collaboration to establish a national biodiversity website and data publication workflow for Uruguay led by GBIF Uruguay1

  • A European project led by the Belgium Biodiversity Platform, host to the Belgian Node, to translate the technical documentation and user-interface required for reusing Atlas of Living Australia’s software to develop national biodiversity portals

  • An African project in which the lead agency, Endangered Wildlife Trust, will train seven GBIF nodes in ecological niche modelling and make the training material available to the community

  • A project in Africa headed by GBIF Portugal2 to promote GBIF in Portuguese-speaking African nations

  • A GBIF Malawi3-led project to identify training and infrastructure needs related to biodiversity data management in the country and to achieve stakeholder commitment in implementing GBIF activities

  • A project in which GBIF France will mentor GBIF Madagascar in strengthening their national network and publishing new data.

The GBIF capacity enhancement support programme builds on previous successful mentoring and regional support programmes and applies the GBIF Capacity Enhancement Framework.

For 2015, the programme provides over €70,000 in financial support, which is in addition to €62,000 in funding that other sources have committed to the selected projects.

Read more about the projects awarded support for 2015.

Notes

1 – GBIF Uruguay is hosted by the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural. The project is co-funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, SIB Colombia and Canadensys.

2 – GBIF Portugal is hosted by the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical.

3 – The Malawi National Commission for Science and Technology is the host institution of GBIF Malawi.