Purpose
Regional grants seek to establish or strengthen international collaborations that increase biodiversity data mobilization for research and policy addressing regional sustainable development needs.
The objectives of the BID regional biodiversity data mobilization grants are to:
- Establish or strengthen international collaborations to mobilize biodiversity data
- Increase available biodiversity data, within and beyond the grant period
- Enhance sustainable development by identifying specific policies or decisions that the mobilized data will support
Regional grants must include activities contributing to each of three component categories below. Each category includes a non-exclusive list of possible types of activity. It is important that activities are implemented within the 24-month project period.
1. Establishing or strengthening networks to support long-term data mobilization and inter-institutional data sharing
- Assessing biodiversity data holdings and user needs through a survey or study to develop a strategy for the consortium
- Organizing regional workshops to promote inter-institutional collaboration.
- Formalizing partnerships through institutional agreements, data sharing policies and public endorsement of mobilization strategies
- Adopting a data publishing process, possibly including installing data publishing informatics tools (e.g. GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit)
- Training data managers and collections staff within key data holding institutions on data mobilization and management, for example, through workshops to share the knowledge gained through attending the BID capacity enhancement workshop
2. Activities to mobilize biodiversity data relevant to sustainable development
- Compiling inventories of biodiversity data holdings (for example, implementing metadata catalogues)
- Digitizing and publishing data from natural history collections, monitoring and sampling activities, DNA barcoding, citizen science, literature and other sources
- Validating and publishing regional, national and local species checklists, invasive species lists or threatened species lists
- Preparing data papers to improve the reusability of the mobilized biodiversity data
3. Integrating biodiversity information into policy and decision-making processes
- Leading surveys or workshops to understand the biodiversity data requirements for specific use cases
- Setting up user groups to guide project implementation on identified priority themes
- Directing workshops and advocacy actions that promote the use of openly accessible data, for example, in national-level biodiversity reporting
- Hosting workshops on data analysis techniques
- Applying biodiversity data in decision-making processes
- Documenting use cases and sharing them with partners in the region
Funding
Maximum funding
- Consortium involving two countries or territories as beneficiaries: €60,000
- Consortium involving three or more countries or territories as beneficiaries: €120,000
The full grant will be awarded to the consortium lead organization, which will take on the responsibility for financial and operational management of the project, including submission of appropriate progress reports and supporting documentation.
Eligibility
In addition to complying with the general eligibility criteria, applications for regional biodiversity data mobilization grants must comply with the following criteria:
- All projects must include activities contributing to each of the three component categories mentioned above.
- The consortium lead organization must be a legal entity from an eligible country.
- A regional consortium must involve legal entities located in a minimum of two eligible countries or overseas territories, as beneficiaries.
- Regional consortia may include one partner in an advisory role only from a country not eligible to receive grants through BID.
- Projects must include a major component of data mobilization through the GBIF network. It is expected that most BID funding will be directed towards data mobilization. As a guideline for the regional grants, the amount of BID funding spent on data mobilization activities should not be less than 60% of the total grant.
- Data mobilization activities must target data from within the target countries.
- BID funds may be used to cover up to 50% of the costs of any IT, electronic and laboratory equipment, up to a maximum of €2,500 of any regional grant. Such equipment includes, but is not limited to, a) computer equipment, such as laptops, desktop computers, servers, hard drives and printers; b) software licences and subscriptions; c) digital cameras and scanners; d) other electrical equipment and electronics; e) lab equipment including microscopes, sequencing equipment, etc. Receipts must be provided in financial reports.
This programme is funded by the European Union.