Applications Invited for 2024 Capacity Enhancement Support Programme

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About the Organization

GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility—is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world's governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth.

About the Grant

GBIF invites current GBIF participants (both voting and associate) to submit concept notes for project funding through the Capacity Enhancement Support Programme (CESP), which enables collaboration between GBIF participants to address identified needs at regional and global levels.

This call aligns with the GBIF Capacity Development Framework. It focuses on enhancing the long-term capacity of participants to benefit from and contribute to GBIF's mission to mobilize the data, skills and technologies needed to make comprehensive biodiversity information freely available for science and decisions addressing biodiversity loss and sustainable development.

Project proposals must target specific capacity needs identified by the participants themselves and be aligned with one or more of the objectives in the 2024 Nodes implementation plan. GBIF encourages all participants to complete a capacity self-assessment to help identify capacity strengths and needs.

Project proposals must be based on collaborative actions, led by a GBIF participant node, where the results will benefit the GBIF community. They can involve one or more of the following types of action eligible for support:

• Mentoring activities: Interactions among two or more participants where the core objective is the transfer of information, technology, experience and best practices in small groups.
• Support for regional events and training workshops: Courses and workshops with a regional (multi-national) component to enhance the capacity of individuals or networks to contribute to and benefit from GBIF.
• Documentation: Production of key learning and promotional resources or their adaptation to the national or regional context (e.g., by translation or including local/regional perspectives). The GBIF Secretariat advocates digital-first documentation to provide technical guidance and support training and skills development across GBIF's communities of practice. The key features of this system include standardized documentation, routine updates, versioning, translations, community input, peer review, and searchable format.
• Other capacity development collaborations: Actions led by at least one GBIF participant aligned with the objectives stated in the 2024 Nodes implementation plan that will contribute to the development of capacity within the GBIF network.

The maximum funding request is €20,000 per project.

Eligibility

Eligibility of applicants:

• Applications must be submitted by a Head of Delegation or a Node Manager, representing a current GBIF Participant (either voting or associate).
• Applicants must be in good standing with GBIF (i.e., the applicant must have no overdue or missing reports and/or deliverables, nor unreturned funds from previous projects funded under GBIF-led programmes).
• The applicant will be responsible for the management, implementation and reporting of the grant on behalf of all project partners. We expect that the applicant is located in the country where the majority of the activities are scheduled to take place. Should this not be the case, a rationale explaining this decision should be included in the concept note.
• The applicant's institution must be able to sign a grant agreement and receive funds in Euros.
• Applicants must commit cofunding (in-kind or cash) to their projects. Cofunding refers to real costs that are incurred by the applicants while executing the funded project's activities. These could be in-kind contributions that directly contribute to the project activities (like staff salaries, travel costs etc.) or any in-cash contributions to CESP activities from other funding sources. Note that activities and deliverables must not be dependent on cofunding from unconfirmed additional grant applications.

Use of funds:

• All CESP funded activities must be not-for-profit.
• Note that CESP funds cannot be used to pay for overheads, which include costs that cannot be directly attributed to the activities of the project, e.g. bank fees, compensation for any exchange rate losses, postal/courier service costs, or reimbursable taxes.
• CESP funds cannot be used to pay for expenses related to the purchase of IT hardware, laboratory equipment and services, costs related to field work and/or the collection of new field data, or laboratory research to capture new data.

How to Apply

• Concept notes must be submitted by 18 June, 23:59 CEST (UTC +2) through the GBIF Grants Portal.
• Invitations to submit full proposals will be sent to selected applicants by August 2024.
• The outcomes of the final review and selection will be communicated to applicants by end October 2024.
• Funded projects are expected to start in December 2024 with a project implementation period of maximum 18 months (1 December, 2024 - 31 May, 2026).

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