Science

Science Track

Plenary sessions, symposia and workshops in this track will provide the opportunity for the conference delegates to:

  1. Highlight opportunities regarding the effective interlinking of diverse data sources for cross-disciplinary research, share innovative ideas and/or proofs of concepts;  
  2. Act as a platform for experience transfer between delegates on data-driven biodiversity- and geodiversity-oriented scientific projects and their impact on science and society;
  3. Demonstrate the current and future impact of scientific tools (including software, workflows and protocols) for data curation, analysis and publication;
  4. Share experiences around specific bottlenecks regarding the availability or quality of online data resources, online scientific services;
  5. Discuss the need for capacity enhancement in the areas of digital skills and competencies for bio- and geo-diversity researchers;
  6. Highlight strong scientific use cases that require collaboration between geodiversity and biodiversity scientists, data managers, informaticians, infrastructure operators and policy makers;
  7. Provide the opportunity to early career researchers to share their experiences and benefit from the rapid developments in the field of bio- and geo-diversity big-data-driven research.  
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Infrastructures

Infrastructure Track

Plenary sessions, symposia and workshops in this track will provide the opportunity to the conference delegates to:

  1. Share technological developments around the development and operation of existing and newly established e-infrastructures for bio- and geo-diversity data;
  2. Discuss existing interoperability frameworks;
  3. Address the challenges around data quality from the perspective of infrastructure operators;
  4. Address issues related to long-term sustainability, business models and user access modes;
  5. Understand how scientific use cases translate into actionable RI development strategies;   
  6. Identify modes of collaboration with industrial actors, both as technology suppliers or users of the RIs services.
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Standards

Standards Track

Plenary sessions, symposia and workshops in this track will provide the opportunity to the conference delegates to:

  1. Discover the work already been done in developing standards and become part of the global community working on this;
  2. Learn how to benefit from existing standards in interactive workshops;
  3. Discuss current and emerging domain standards and their role in the global landscape under the umbrella of TDWG interest groups and task groups;
  4. Address challenges in implementation, interpretation and maintenance of data standards and vocabularies;
  5. Identify priority areas and gaps where new standards or additions to existing standards are needed and join with experts to participate in active groups that will the pioneer work in taking the identified tasks forward;
  6. Share expertise in domain standards development and discuss how to align these with the global interdisciplinary developments towards standardisation and emerging global and regional infrastructures like iDigBio and DiSSCo.
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Policy & International Coordination

Policy & International Coordination Track

Plenary sessions, symposia and workshops in this track will provide the opportunity to the conference delegates to:

  1. Continue ongoing international activities for a global bio- and geo-diversity Research infrastructures coordination mechanism;
  2. Identify and promote clear added-value chains from data generation to science policy making;
  3. Describe clear uses that require the interplay between data infrastructures and science policy makers;
  4. Assess impact towards reaching global goals and targets of a no-action approach to further enhancement of digital (data) skills and further infrastructure development and interoperability;
  5. Understand how global biodiversity and geodiversity scientific drivers need to be embedded into national and regional environmental, agricultural, health and food and research infrastructure strategies and policies;
  6. Identify how specific data-driven tools and metrics (e.g. Essential Biodiversity Variables) and their underpinning communities of practice, data sets and infrastructures, can act as robust and dependable policy making mechanisms.    
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