Applications Invited for GBIF - Promoting the Mobilization and Use of Biodiversity Data in Asia

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About the Organization:

GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility—is an international network and research infrastructure funded by the world’s governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth. The GBIF network draws all these sources together through the use of data standards, such as Darwin Core, which forms the basis for the bulk of GBIF.org's index of hundreds of millions of species occurrence records.

New call to promote the mobilization and use of biodiversity data in Asia

GBIF invites the submission of concept notes for projects that enhance knowledge of Asian biodiversity through access to data from biological collections and monitoring programmes in the region.

The call is issued under the sixth phase of the Biodiversity Information Fund for Asia (BIFA) programme, funded by the Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan. It aims to address key challenges and priorities identified in connection with the mobilization and use of biodiversity data in the region. The total funding assigned to this call is approximately €220,000.

This call seeks to support projects that -

1. Strengthen the capacity of institutions in the target countries to manage and mobilize biodiversity data

2. Mobilize primary data on Asian biodiversity, with a preference given to the mobilization of:

• Data relating to the hosts, reservoirs or vectors of zoonotic diseases
• Data derived from DNA, for example metabarcoding and eDNA projects
• Data mobilized by the private sector through environmental impact assessments or other monitoring activities

3. Increase open data on Asian biodiversity to fill taxonomic and geographic gaps, within and beyond the grant period

Two types of grants are included in the call:

• BIFA collections data mobilization grants that target Asia’s natural history collections, to fill taxonomic and geographic gaps in freely-accessible data relating to Asian biodiversity.
• BIFA ecological monitoring data mobilization grants that target Asian biodiversity monitoring programmes and networks.

Funding:

A maximum of €20,000 may be requested through a BIFA grant. All proposals must include co-funding from other sources, either directly or in-kind including staff time. No overheads¹, fieldwork and/or the collection of new field data may be charged to BIFA. As part of the grant request, up to a maximum of €1,000 may be requested for IT, electronic and laboratory equipment, as well as bioinformatics and sequencing services to process existing materials², covering up to a maximum of 50% of the cost of each item or service order.

Benefits:

Selected projects will be required to nominate a project team member to attend a virtual data mobilization workshop organized by the BIFA programme and obtain certification for the skills acquired. This workshop is expected to take place in November 2021. Note that the cost of participation in this workshop will be met separately from the BIFA programme. However, workshop participants nominated by funded projects are expected to contribute time to attend.

Eligibility Criteria:

All activities funded under the BIFA programme must comply with the following general eligibility criteria:

• Concept notes and full proposals must be submitted in English through the GBIF Grants Portal by the stated deadlines
• Applicants must be legal entities located in an eligible Asian country. Such entities include national government agencies, GBIF Participant nodes and their host institutions, natural history museums and collections, research institutes, universities, networks and NGOs, etc.
• Applicants must be in good standing with GBIF
• No applications for funding a third year of a continuing BIFA project will be considered eligible. Applicants from projects that have already received a second BIFA grant for a follow-up project may, however, submit new proposals that differ substantially from the scope and objectives of the original project and follow-up.
• Fieldwork and/or the collection of new field data are not eligible costs under the BIFA programme – although such activities may be included in a project plan if funded by alternative sources.
• All BIFA funded activities must be not-for-profit, although private companies and consultancies may be included as project partners.
• Applicants must commit co-funding (in-kind or cash) to their projects and provide details of this co-funding in their concept notes and full proposals. Co-funding 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 BIFA activities from other funding sources. The level of this co-funding will be taken into account when evaluating the proposal’s cost-effectiveness.
• Overhead¹ costs may not be charged to BIFA Grants.
• As part of the grant request, up to a maximum of €1,000 may be requested for IT, electronic and laboratory equipment, as well as bioinformatics and sequencing services to process existing materials², covering up to a maximum of 50% of the cost of each item or service order. Receipts must be provided in financial reports.
• Applicants from countries or organizations in Asia that already participate in GBIF must include a statement of endorsement from the GBIF Head of Delegation or Node Manager at the concept note stage. Contact information for representatives of GBIF Participant countries and organizations can be found on the Participant pages linked from the Participant list.

For any additional information or questions, please contact BIFA@gbif.org.

Deadline: 09 February 2021, 23:59 CET (UTC +1)

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