NLBIF searches talented PhD and MSc students in the field of biodiversity informatics. Graduate and PhD students using the (new) possibilities of international (GBIF) datasharing in combination with novelty ICT applications to address scientific and societal biodiversity problems, can be nominated for the GBIF Young Researchers Award. This stimulation award, one for PhD students and one for MSc students, enables the selected candidates to invest up to 4000 euro in their own research program. For more information please visit the GBIF website and download the call for proposals. Applications should be submitted through the NLBIF secretariat. As a GBIF member state The Netherlands can nominate two candidates, in the case of more applicants a selection shall be made by an ad hoc committee. Interested candidates should mail their application before September the 15th. For more information please contact the NLBIF Node manager.

NLBIF cooperates more and more with organisations and institutes investigating the relevance of biodivesity data for science and society. The progress of international biodiversity networks such as GBIF very much depends on the social dynamics within this network and the interaction of the network with the outside world. NLBIF therefore uses its communication channels to announce the international symposium Living with Biodiversity: People, Knowledge, Politics.

Date: Wednesday 22 – Thursday 23 September 2010

Place: NCB-Naturalis, The Dutch Natural History Museum, Leiden, The Netherlands

For more information and registration please visit the symposium's info site.

GBIF Secretariat launches ‘Content Needs Assessment Survey’.

Through this announcement we request stakeholders and users of primary biodiversity data to participate in the Survey. The objective of this survey is to assess the user needs for primary biodiversity data. The major purpose of this exercise is to identify the gaps in biodiversity data presently accessible through GBIF, and make recommendations on data mobilisation strategies to bridge the gap between data needs and data access. The ultimate goal is to provide guidance to GBIF and its network of 'data publishers', in order to improve fitness-for-use and utility of GBIF mediated data.

The Survey will be open for respondents until 12th June 2009.

Link to the GBIF survey

Please click on the link below to see details of the survey announcement in English, Spanish and French.

Survey announcement

African plant species through the NLBIF portal: PROTAbase connected.

Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA) is an international, not-for-profit foundation. It intends to synthesize the dispersed information on the approximately 7,000 useful plants of Tropical Africa and to provide wide access to the information through Webdatabases, Books, CD-Rom’s and Special Products. The direct target groups for the PROTA information are the decision-makers in government, private sector, research, education and rural development, whose decisions affect millions of people depending for their livelihood on the plant resources. The objectives of PROTA are to bring the published information, now accessible to the resourceful happy few, into the public domain. This will contribute to greater awareness and sustained use of the ‘world heritage of African useful plants’, with due respect for traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights.

The information on hundreds of useful plants of tropical Africa that PROTA has assembled, is stored in PROTAbase, hosted by Wageningen University and Research Center. PROTAbase is now connected to the NLBIF biodiversity Portal. Images, descriptions, common names.... all these PROTAbase fields will be queried when using the search options of the NLBIF portal. The connection of PROTAbase to the NLBIF portal is part of NLBIF's mission not only to provide central access to primary biodiversity data (which specieswhere and when) available in the Netherlands, but also to quality resources with secondary biodiversity information (images, descriptions, economic value, etc).

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