2023 - 2027

GBIF
StrategicFramework

Introduction
For more than 20 years, GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility—has provided
anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth. GBIF has earned
the reputation as the “most comprehensive, openly available… access point to known
digital species occurrence data.” The interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss andclimate change have increased the requirements and urgency for data to inform research,
policy and decisions from local to global scales.
GBIF is expanding to include more and varied types of data and improved informatics
services in order to supply the biodiversity information that global research and policy
require. Our community of people is also growing with new nodes, data publishers anddata users. GBIF’s maturity has earned trust from the global community, and with trust
comes responsibility and the expectation of leadership. The urgent need for solutions tomultiple global crises compels GBIF to build a truly global network of people capable offacilitating the delivery of all potentially available biodiversity data through a proveninfrastructure. This framework sets out the vision, mission, values and priorities agreed by
the GBIF Governing Board to guide the network’s activities in the period 2023-2027.
CODATA, the Committee on Data of the International Science Council; Pfeiffenberger, Hans; Uhlir, Paul; Twenty-Year Review of
GBIF (CODATA, Paris, 2020) https://doi.org/10.35035/ctzm-hz97

VisionA world in which the best
possible biodiversity data
underpins research, policy anddecisions.

Mission
To mobilize the data, skills andtechnologies needed to makecomprehensive biodiversity
information freely availablefor science and decisions
addressing biodiversity lossand sustainable development

Values

Underpinning this mission are the values that have characterized GBIF’s ﬁrst 20years and will advance our work – values that apply to the Secretariat, to the global
nodes network, to participants, to data publishing institutions, and to data users,
that together embody the global GBIF community.
Trust and Transparency: Expectations that all decisions and processes are open; thatdata is properly attributed and of the highest-possible quality; and that infrastructures arerobust, documented and persistent
Collaboration and Collective Beneﬁt: A recognition that only through a spirit ofcooperation can we fulﬁl GBIF’s mission by sharing skills, data, tools and experiences,avoiding duplication, and growing a global community of practiceDiversity and Inclusiveness: A commitment to engage and welcome people of allnationalities, cultures, genders and backgrounds while recognizing all contributions to ourglobal community
Innovation: An ambition to lead by example in advancing open science and data services
and in adopting novel techniques for collaboration and learning, recognizing that
simplicity is often the best means of reaching our goals
Integrity: An assurance that professional norms and scientiﬁc integrity are respected; andthat data-sharing safeguards the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities aswell as potential risks to sensitive species

Strategic Priority Areas
We will achieve GBIF’s vision and mission through various means.

GBIF recognizes that biodiversity data is more complicated thanTo retain our ability to adapt to dynamic changes, the following‘just’ the occurrence of species in time and space: organisms

priority areas offer broad guidelines rather than detailed directives.

interact, co-occur, move and evolve. This implies a need for richer
and more varied types of data than GBIF has thus far supported.

High-quality data, world-class technical infrastructure andRecognizing GBIF’s impact and its relevance to a growing number

exceptional people will enable GBIF to achieve its strategicof stakeholders, continued success demands that more and better

priorities. To date, our success in delivering information on thetrained people adopt and share GBIF’s mission and that GBIF fulﬁls

occurrence of species at a particular place and time has comeuser requirements whether they are simple or complex.

from a governance structure that enables us to build communities
of practice to share, discover and access high-quality data that

The strategic framework aims to deliver enhanced value andretains full details of its provenance.

coherence through continued innovation that further enables ourcommunity and meets its emerging needs. Building on theBuilding on our role in research and decision-making, GBIF must

foundation provided by our global network, the strategic priority

accelerate the pace of its work to meet the urgent challenges ofareas that follow target the data, people and infrastructure needed

the biodiversity and climate crises. We must continue to enhance

to improve the understanding, conservation and restoration of

our network’s capacity, enrich its data and scale our infrastructure

biodiversity in all its inherent complexity.

to accelerate understanding of biodiversity and support thetransformative changes needed to achieve sustainability.

1

Building the evidence
to advance scientific researchand understanding of global biodiversity
Objectives
Reduce knowledge gaps by helping the network to set targets for consolidating data
coverage across thematic, taxonomic, phylogenetic, spatial and temporal dimensions.
Enable, expand and diversify the uptake and application of GBIF-mediated data.
Support the evolution of fundamental data-driven biodiversity research and its application
across methods, scales and disciplines in life and environmental sciences.
Ensure meaningful data exchange and reuse of data through citations and measurements,
promoting and consistently applying accepted standards that adhere to best practices andsustain the highest aspirations in open and data-intensive science.
Increase GBIF’s relevance to research, promote recognition, expand involvement andimprove best practices for data in academia and higher education.

2

Supporting policy responses and knowledgetransfer that address urgent societal challenges
around planetary change
Objectives
Develop high-impact programmes that frame themes related to the biodiversity dataneeds for key societal challenges, including biodiversity loss, climate change, foodsecurity and human health.
Strengthen capacity for use of data to contribute to local, national, regional and global
biodiversity-related goals, joining with partners to support application of data inpolicy-relevant information tools and products.
Work with intergovernmental policy partners to provide decision-makers with a more
complete global view of biodiversity status and trends, including the use of
GBIF-mediated data to generate indicators and to track essential biodiversity variables.
Enhance GBIF’s relevance to policy and decision-makers by creating and maintaining
deeper collaborative engagement, through multilateral environmental agreements, UN
agencies and science-policy platforms.
Reﬁne messaging to help GBIF target and engage with a wider range of stakeholders.

3Enabling the network to meet
future needs and challenges
Objectives
Ensure that GBIF nodes provide a strong and stable foundation for data mobilization anduse through the network.
Increase national participation whil e strengthening engagement of existing voting
participants, including in GBIF governance and decision-making.
Develop solutions that increase meaningful participation in the GBIF community by
reducing linguistic barriers and providing capacity development and programme support.
Maximize GBIF’s impact by pursuing collaborations across a growing community ofpartners.
Foster greater openness and transparency through distributed open-source
development of shared infrastructure, targeted campaigns for data mobilization and data
use, and joint public and private partnerships.
Leverage and diversify funding sources to direct ﬁnancial support toward strategic
growth, especially in biodiversity-rich areas, while maintaining core funding throughvoting participants.

4Driving innovation to advancebiodiversity-related knowledge
Objectives
Sustain and improve a robust, environmentally responsible technical infrastructure
capable of providing the most accurate, up-to-date, interoperable and reusable data
available.
Evolve and adapt data standards and models to enable routine generation of increasinglycomplex, integrated and comprehensive biodiversity data.
Improve data quality by ensuring rapid, efficient identiﬁcation and resolution of errors
and issues.
Strive toward operating a real-time biodiversity monitoring infrastructure that reduces
barriers and delays to integrating current data.
Use the convening power of GBIF to continue to drive the coordination and advancementof the global biodiversity informatics community.

Suggested citation
GBIF Strategic Framework 2023-2027 (2021)
GBIF Secretariat: Copenhagen. https://doi.org/10.35035/doc-0kkq-0t82
Persistent URI
https://doi.org/10.35035/doc-0kkq-0t82
Document control
Approved by GBIF Governing Board, October 2021
Implementation plan and annual work programmes
https://www.gbif.org/strategic-plan