NFDI4Biodiversity - Project details (NFDI4Biodiversity)
NFDI4Biodiversity
NFDI4Biodiversity is a consortium for biodiversity, ecology and environmental data intended to be made available as a service for biodiversity research and ecology on a long-term basis.
Under the umbrella of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), NFDI4Biodiversity consists of an association of a total of 50 partner organizations from all over Germany. These include the academic sector with research institutions and scientific IT service centers, but also museums, natural history societies, state offices as well as civil society initiatives and other institutions from the field of nature conservation. The consortial partners benefit from the preliminary work of the German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio), an association of scientific institutions and data centres that has been developing services for scientists in biology, ecology and biodiversity research for more than eight years. In NFDI4Biodiversity, the number of actors and services is expanding; in addition, the consortium is increasingly focusing on the use of cloud technologies.
Together, they pursue the goal of enabling quality-assured and FAIR biodiversity data through their professional, scientific and technical combined expertise. Thus, a basis for better contributions to the conservation of planetary biodiversity shall be created. Biodiversity in this context encompasses more than just the recording of the diversity of species; it includes genotypic, phenotypic and functional diversity as well as the interaction of species, populations and ecosystems. Accordingly, there is a wide variety of data that must be tapped in order to answer pressing questions about changes in the living environment. Only by a fundamental, system-wide reorganization nature can still be preserved, restored and sustainably used. Beyond the realization and provision of the necessary technical underpinnings, ‘transformative change’ in both infrastructural and cultural terms also requires the education and training of the scientific community to achieve acceptance and willingness.
A community-driven approach is being taken to this extensive work. Five task areas (TAs) are working towards the consortium's goals, whereby TA5 is concerned with the coordination and strategic direction of the overall consortium.
To this end, the consortium partners offer added value to the professional community, specifically:
- Access to modern technologies and a comprehensive stock of biodiversity and environmental data
- Methods and tools for archiving, publishing, searching and analysing data that are suitable for everyday use and have been tried and tested in practice
- An expert forum for the safe and competent handling of data for diverse and responsible use