STRATEGIC PLAN
2017–2021

STRATEGIC FRAMEWORKThis Strategic Plan identifies a set of five interrelated priorities for GBIF activity during 20172021. The overall goal is to increase the relevance and value of GBIF as a mechanism fordelivering comprehensive information on the recorded occurrence of species around the world.
Achieving this goal depends on expanding
engagement into all countries and regions andon maximizing the value and benefits provided
by GBIF for all key stakeholders, including
data publishers, national and organizational
participants, researchers, and governments andintergovernmental frameworks.

traits, and literature, among others. Progressin delivering the GBIO framework will reinforce
GBIF’s work in all areas by enabling integrationof complementary data and use of species-level
information to validate, clean and augment GBIF
data.

zTogether, these five priorities represent achallenging but significant path forward
for GBIF to increase its usefulness for all
stakeholders. Implementing this strategy will
require coordinated activity throughout theGBIF network as well as engagement andcollaboration with all other stakeholders inbiodiversity information.

The third and fourth priorities­—to fill datagaps and to improve data quality—address
the greatest weaknesses of the data alreadydelivered through the GBIF network. They arise
from the challenge of maintaining clear, precise,high-resolution data while integrating it fromthousands of different institutions and projects.
Such issues also stem from the uneven natureof content mobilization with regard to taxa,
time and space. GBIF must focus on enhancing
the accuracy and completeness of publisheddata and metadata and on improving handlingof aggregated data. Doing so will support
more consistent overall quality and enableresearchers to assess the fitness of the data for
their purposes. At the same time, it is important
to assess and prioritize the various gaps andvariations within GBIF data and to work with theglobal community to address these weaknesses.

z

The first priority—to empower global
network—underpins those that follow. GBIF is
not simply a partnership focused on delivering
a global data resource. Its goals must include
establishing effective national biodiversity
information facilities (BIFs) as activities andnetworks that connect the groups that hold or
require information on biodiversity, and for thesenational BIFs to deliver value at the nationallevel. Progress in any country will also yield
benefits to others by increasing data availability
and comprehensiveness and by contributing
capacity and expertise to the global network.

z

The last but in some ways overriding
priority­—to deliver relevant data—means
providing access to the data resources andthe aggregated data products needed bybiodiversity researchers of all types and by
policymakers in support of conservation andsustainable development. This priority requires
closer engagement with user communities, bothto establish present and future requirements
and to collaborate in curating data to thehighest possible standards of quality.

zThe second priority­—to enhancebiodiversity information infrastructure—
supports the previous priorities. GBIF mustenhance its cooperation with other biodiversity
informatics activities to increase interoperability
and interconnection between GBIF species
occurrence data and the best available
information on taxonomy, sequences, species

2

1

EMPOWER GLOBAL NETWORK
Ensure that governments, researchers and users areequipped and supported to share, improve and use data
through the GBIF network, regardless of geography,
language or institutional affiliation

Remove barriers toparticipation

Increase benefits associated withpublishing biodiversity data

Address capacity needs

kkk

Engage with government
stakeholders in all regions
to expandnational participation in GBIF

kk

Ensure that data holders
everywhere have access to tools
and support to publish and use
data through GBIF

kkk

Evaluate and respond to needsfor delivery of data and datasummaries in additional formats
and through new technologies

Promote best practices for citation
and acknowledgment of data
publishers

kk

Report on use of data accessed
through GBIF networkkkk

Enable data publishers and users
to collaborate in correcting andimproving data

Maintain current and complete
guidance materials to support
all types of data holder and data
publisherkk

Support capacity exchange andreuse of tools and expertise toaccelerate establishment of
national biodiversity information
facilities

kkk

Partner with other organizations,institutions and agencies
to maximize benefits frominvestments in capacity
development in all regions

kkkk

Promote inclusion of biodiversity
informatics training as part ofrelevant university and workplace
education

kkkkk

Seek supplementary funding tosupport development of national
biodiversity information facilities
32ENHANCE BIODIVERSITYINFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Provide leadership, expertise and tools to support
the integration of all biodiversity information as aninterconnected digital knowledgebase.

Coordinate vision and strengthen
partnerships with major
biodiversity informatics initiatives

Promote standardization andcommon mechanisms for exchangeof biodiversity data

Provide stable and persistent data
infrastructure to support researchkkk

Deliver comprehensive taxonomicsolutions in partnership with
Catalogue of Life and otherpartners

kk

Develop and promote sharedarchitecture to enable all
biodiversity knowledge to beintegrated and managed as alinked digital resource

kkk

Agree plans and secure funding
to implement shared architecture
in partnership with othermajor biodiversity informatics
organizations, particularly aroundtaxonomic and nomenclatural data

Promote development andadoption of a comprehensive
domain model, standards andvocabularies for biodiversity
information through TDWG andother partnerships

kk

Provide leadership in development
and adoption of standardized tools,
data format and vocabularies
to enable mobilization and useof all biodiversity knowledge

kkkkSeek funding with partner
initiatives to deliver a stable andefficient network of interoperable
infrastructures connecting andmaintaining all biodiversity
knowledge

4Implement and promote models
and tools for persistent sharing
and use of open datakk

Contribute to wider initiatives tostandardize management and useof open data in research

3

FILL DATA GAPS
Prioritize and promote mobilization of new data resources thatcombine with existing resources to maximize the coverage,
completeness and resolution of GBIF-mediated data,
particularly with respect to taxonomy, geography and time.

Expand checklists to cover alltaxonomic groups

Identify and prioritize gaps inspatial and temporal data

Engage institutions andresearchers withcomplementary data

kkk

Coordinate and delivercomprehensive solutions inpartnership with Catalogue of Lifeand other partners

kk

Target mobilization of checklists
for remaining taxonomic groups

kkk

Develop models and criteria
to assess completeness andadequacy of existing data

Develop mechanisms to integrateother classes of data providing
information on species occurrencekk

kk

Maintain “gap map” highlighting
priority regions, taxa and time
periods to fill gaps

Mobilize national and regional
species lists

Ensure that tools anddocumentation support
mobilization of data streams fromall relevant research areas andobservation systems

kkk

Promote best practices for
GBIF nodes to identify, engage
and support all national holdersof relevant data

kkkk

Develop mechanisms to support
data sharing from researchers andinstitutions in countries which are
not yet GBIF Participants

kkkkk

Seek supplementary funding
to support large-scale content
mobilization

5

4

IMPROVE DATA QUALITY
Ensure that all data within the GBIF network are ofthe highest-possible quality and associated with clearindicators enabling users to assess their origin, relevanceand usefulness for any application.

Enhance automated data validation

Implement tools for expert curation

Provide clear quality indicators
for all datakkk

Validate metadata forcompleteness and interpretability

kk

Validate individual data records

kkk

Validate datasets as a whole

Integrate and promote tools toannotate individual records andbatches of records

Improve metadata for all datasets
explaining methods, provenance,transformations etc.(“data stories”)

kk

kk

Enable publication of cleaned dataas “reference” datasets

kkk

Improve communication withand support for data publishers
to address issues

6

Provide metrics and filters
for download of data subsets
matching user criteria

kkkWork with expert communities
to develop reference datasets
and/or filters for data suitablefor key applications

5

DELIVER RELEVANT DATA
Ensure that GBIF delivers data in the form andcompleteness required to meet the highest-priority
needs of science and, through science, society..

Engage with expert communities
to manage data to thehighest quality possible

Deliver well-organized andvalidated data tosupport key applications

kk

Engage taxonomic societies,
professional researchers andamateur experts as partners inassessing and improving
GBIF-mediated data

Develop mechanisms to monitor
and prioritize data needs from
GBIF audienceskk

Support supra-national research,
conservation and sustainable use,
particularly through
CBD, IPBES and GEO BON

kkDefine criteria for determining
data relevance (elements,completeness, etc.) for key
applications and domains

kkk

Provide data relevant tounderstanding and responding to
the impacts of climate change on
biodiversity

kkk

Develop mechanisms forcommunity curation of taxonomic,
geographic or thematic sectorswithin GBIF-mediated data

kkkk

Ensure that GBIF serves as a
virtual natural history collection
to support taxonomic researchkkkkk

Assess and develop role of GBIF
in support of Nagoya Protocol

7

GBIF Secretariat
Universitetsparken 15
DK-2100 Copenhagen ØDenmark
tel +45 35 32 14 70
email communication@gbif.org
web www.gbif.org

NETWORK AT A GLANCE Participant network as of 1 Jan 2017
32

34

36

17

7
22
8
3

533

37

26

15

111231

27

29

38

13
39

6924
1020

14228

425

18

21

123

30

16

VOTING PARTICIPANTS

19

ASSOCIATE PARTICIPANTS
NON-COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS

To view the current map of GBIF Participants, visit www.gbif.org/the-gbif-network
NON-COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS

1. ARCOS: Albertine Rift Conservation Society 13. CETAF: Consortium of European

3. BHL: Biodiversity Heritage Library

Taxonomic Facilities
14. Discover Life

4. Bionet-Andinonet
15. EOL: Encyclopedia of Life
1. ARCOS:
Albertine Rift Conservation Society
5. Bionet-International

9. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
5. Bionet-International

6. Bioversity International
1 0 . Chinese Taipei

23. ICIPE: International Centre for Insect

18. HOAREC: Horn of Africa Regional

25. ILTER: International Long Term

Environmental Center and Network
19. ICLEI - Local Governments forSustainability
20. ITIS: Integrated Taxonomic

1 1 . CYTED: Ciencia y Tecnología para elInformation System

7. BGCI: BotanicDesarrollo Gardens Conservation International
21. IABIN: Inter-American Biodiversity
8. Canadensys

12. CBOL: Consortium for the Barcode

Information Networkof Life

9. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
10. Chinese Taipei
11. CYTED: Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo
12. CBOL: Consortium for the Barcode of Life
13. CETAF: Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities
14. Discover Life
15. EOL: Encyclopedia of Life
16. Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT)
17. EEA: European Environment Agency
18. Horn of Africa Regional Environmental Centre andNetwork
19. ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
20. ITIS: Integrated Taxonomic Information System

31. P l a z i
32. SCAR: Scientific Committee on
Antarctic ResearchEcology
33. SPNHC: Society for the Preservation
21.Physiology
IABIN:andInter-American
Biodiversity
Information Network
24. ICIMOD: International Centre forInternational

4. Bionet-Andinonet
8. Canadensys

Project

16. EWT: Endangered Wildlife Trust

2. ASEAN
Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) 17. EEA: European Environment Agency
6. Bioversity International
BGCI: Botanic Gardens
Conservation
3. BHL:7.Biodiversity
Heritage
Library

22. IBOL: International Barcode of Life

NON-COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS

2. ACB: ASEAN Centre for Biodiversityof Natural History Collections

22.Integrated
IBOL:Mountain
International
Barcode34.ofSpecies
Life Project
Development
2000

Databases
23. ICIPE: International Centre 35.
forTDWG:
InsectTaxonomic
Physiology
and Ecology
Ecological Research*Working Group*

24. ICIMOD: International Centrefor Integrated Mountain
36. UNEP-WCMC: United Nations
Development
27. NCSA: Natural Science Collections
Environment Programme – World
26. Naturalis

Centre25.Alliance
ILTER: International Long TermConservation
EcologicalMonitoring
Research26. Naturalis Biodiversity Center

28. NatureServe

37. VertNet

29. NORDGEN: Nordic Genetic Resource

38. Wildscreen

27.CenterNCSA: Natural Science Collections
39. WFCC: AllianceWorld Federation For Culture
28. NatureServe

30. PBIF: Pacific Biodiversity Information

Collections

Forum

29. NORDGEN: Nordic Genetic Resource Center
30. PBIF: Pacific Biodiversity Information Forum
31. Plazi
32. SCAR: Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
33. SPNHC: Society for the Preservation of Natural History
Collections
34. Species 2000
35. TDWG: Taxonomic Databases Working Group
36. UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre
37. VertNet
38. Wildscreen
39. WFCC: World Federation For Culture Collections