Lightning talk at TDWG (Firenze, 29 Oct 2013)

1. http://tinyurl.com/oalvv8r
Structuring the biodiversity informatics community at the European level and beyond
ViBRANT
Virtual Biodiversity
Our goal, sine qua non,
is to deliver predictive
modelling of the
biosphere.

2. http://tinyurl.com/oalvv8r
Structuring the biodiversity informatics community at the European level and beyond
Most important things to standardise:
The value of biodiversity informatics to Governments and funding agencies;
A global harvesting standard(s) to harvest from repositories;
Enhanced communication among teams / colleagues;
More coordinated use of space products.
Funding to support internationally coordinated activity?
ERIC and JPI instruments are best way to sustain in Europe;
EC co-operation calls with other countries / regions;
Get more involved with larger groups;
Policy-relevant data and promise of job creation opens doors to funding;
Involve partners with long-term institutional mandates;
Partnering rather than competing is essential;
Deliver something general public can use in their everyday lives.

3. http://tinyurl.com/oalvv8r
Structuring the biodiversity informatics community at the European level and beyond
How can we continue to cooperate at the global level?
Events like BIH 2013;
Improve our communications (e.g. http://h2020.myspecies.info);
Sustainability must also be addressed in terms of scientific interest and not just
finance;
Standardised technology (e.g. OGC and ISO) to cover biodiversity science;
Recognise the role for commercial companies;
Think about where we fit in this landscape. Gap analysis needed.
Horizons work like whitepaper, CReATIVE-B and GBIO is helping to clarify
thinking. Gap analysis again.

4. http://tinyurl.com/oalvv8r
Structuring the biodiversity informatics community at the European level and beyond
The biodiversity informatics community needs :
Clarity of vision, greater focus on end-goals;
Good, simple tools with syntactic operability;
Community identity;
Better links within our community and with other disciplines.
We have a lot of data. Now we need to show that those data are
actually useful.
What questions can these data address?
Stop mobilising just any data. Invert the system and direct what
data are to be recovered by the question that is being
addressed. This will also dictate the quality level.

5. http://tinyurl.com/oalvv8r
Structuring the biodiversity informatics community at the European level and beyond
3 key words: integration, cooperation, promotion.
Integration, we have a number of directions like the virtual lab. Pay attention to
data other than species data and the tools that can utilise them.
Cooperation: if you want to model the whole biosphere you need data from
over the whole world, not just Europe. The gap areas (Russia, China, Brazil)
must be closed.
Promotion: Europe should develop its leadership in this area. There are really
only two different users: scientists & decision makers (effectively CBD and
IPBES). If we satisfy these two, then everyone else should be able to get
what they need.
Thanks to Keping Ma