ENBI's main objective is to establish a strong network that will identify biodiversity information priorities to be managed at the European scale. ENBI is also the European contribution to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). ENBI is an EC supported Thematic Network accommodating 65 European institutes representing 24 countries. The project started on the first of January 2003 and will run for 3 years.

Biological diversity is essential to maintain life on earth and has important social, scientific, economic, cultural and aesthetic values. For using, monitoring and understanding the world's biodiversity it is necessary to utilise the existing biodiversity information to its full potential. Primary biodiversity data will therefore have to be digitised and made accessible through an integrated shared information infrastructure. The major objective of ENBI is to establish a strong European network for this purpose. This network pools the relevant technical resources and human expertise in Europe and will identify the biodiversity information priorities to be managed at the European level. Other objectives are the establishment of communication platforms to inquire the needs of the users of biodiversity information and to disseminate biodiversity expertise to professionals and policy makers.

ENBI is the European contribution to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The business plan of GBIF gives priority to the vast objective to make primary biodiversity data globally available. In first instance GBIF is restricted to taxonomic data and to biological collection and specimen data, as well as to promoting the common access and interoperability between these databases. ENBI follows these priorities by concentrating on databases at the European scale and on activities that need co-operation at a European level. ENBI also explores the potential of tools to apply the biodiversity data as such, or in combination with other categories of data. In addition, ENBI focuses on the market of end-users with special attention on processes to develop specific products and services.

A strong network will be established and maintained by bringing together the major stakeholders in the field of biodiversity information. Members of the network are the co-ordinating institutes of past and current EU biodiversity projects, and the (designated) institutes that act as, or host, the national GBIF-nodes. Also the NAS countries are represented in ENBI. The activities of ENBI are co-ordinated with those of the European Community Clearing-House Mechanism and the European Environmental Agency.

Main project outcomes:

• Facilitated the development of a common strategy towards the maintenance, enhancement and presentation of biodiversity databases
• Developed interoperability and middleware software that can integrate different levels of information and thus cross the borders of disciplines of biodiversity (biogeography, taxonomy, phylogeny, genetics etc.), to give biodiversity research a new dimension.
• Promoted a collaborative approach for Web Map Services to harvest data from several different biodiversity databases in order to build better distribution maps
• Developed digital ‘biodiversity dictionaries' that can be integrated in an automatic online translation service that can be applied on top of any monolingual biodiversity information service.

Back to HOME.