Current projects:
 

LIFE WATCH is a European plan to link ecological monitoring data collected from marine and terrestrial environments with the data in physical collections. The new infrastructure will provide access to the large data sets from different (genetic, population, species and ecosystem) levels of biodiversity together with analytical and modelling tools.

The EU is now financing a preparatory phase project (planned start: 1 Feb 2008), in which the BGBM leads WP5 “Construction Plan” in cooperation with the Fraunhofer IAIS and Cardiff  University.

The overall objective of EDIT is to integrate European taxonomic effort within the ERA and to build a world leading capacity. EDIT will create a European virtual centre of excellence, which will increase both the scientific basis and capacity for biodiversity conservation. EDIT comprises of 8 work-packages, the BGBM leads WP5 and is strongly involved in WP6.

WP5 “Internet platform for cybertaxonomy” aims to demonstrate exemplary integration mechanisms in the area of informatics for taxonomy as well as raise scientific efficiency by significantly reducing of the number and/or duration of steps involved in the taxonomic research and publication/dissemination process.

WP6 "Unifying revisionary taxonomy" includes analyses and syntheses of taxonomic concepts to create new knowledge.

A 2-year project establishing the European mirror site for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility GBIF.

SYNTHESYS Networking Activity D: Information Access and Processing

SYNTHESYS (Synthesis of systematics resources) is a collaboration project of 20 European natural history museums and botanic gardens led by the Natural History Museum in London and funded by the European Commissions 6th Framework Programme. The BGBM coordinates informatics and IT tasks for the project in Networking Activity D. NA D will build on and actively incorporate results of initiatives such as BioCASE and ENHSIN, which have laid the base for a European collection information service, and aims to take the research work from these initiatives as the core of a practical, sustainable, Europe-wide information network for users of taxonomic information. There will also be interaction with global biodiversity informatics infrastructure, represented by GBIF, and related European projects, such as ENBI.

The BGBM also takes part in the German Taxonomic Access Facility DE-TAF of SYNTHESYS.

A 5-Partner project financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the GBIF-D Programme to ensure the technical and organisational cohesion of the seven Nodes in the German GBIF system.

Sustained projects:

A 10-partner development project co-ordinated by the BGBM, running until Dec 31, 2005. Financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the GBIF-D Programme. The project is sustained by the BGBM.

An implementation project at the BGBM, high resolution digital camera equipment is used to produce digital images. Type specimens, loans, and some of the important collections such as the Herbarium Willdenow form the priorities for the project. Partially supported by the Association of Friends of the BGBM. and by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation.

A 35-partner research and development project co-ordinated by the BGBM, starting  Nov. 1, 2001.  Financed under the EU's 5th Framework Programme, Research Infrastructures until Jan. 31, 2005, to be carried on by the partnership at least until August 2006. The BGBM is responsible for over-all co-ordination and for the development of the access system. The project is sustained in the framework of SYNTHESYS.

A research and development project (11 partners) coordinated by the University of Reading's Centre for Plant Diversity and Systematics. 1.8.2000 - 30.7.2003. Financed under the European Commission's 5th Framework Programme, Theme 4 (Environment). The BGBM was responsible for software development and provided part of the basic dataset (Med-Checklist). After the conclusion of the EU-funded project, the Secretariat moved to the BGBM and the project was sustained by funding from GBIF, the Mattfeld-Quadbeck foundation, the Association of Friends of the BGBM, and from BGBM resources.

A research and development project at the BGBM, 1. 11. 2000 - 28. 2. 2003, financed by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation of the Ministry of the Environment, with the aim to investigate models for the association of data relevant to nature conservation by means of named taxonomic concepts. 
Its second phase (1. 4. 2003 - 31. 3. 2005), had the aim of bringing the taxonomic core of the BfN's botanical data holdings into a Berlin-Model database and to start with the implementation of the "trasmission engine" for dependable linking between different taxon concepts.
The project is sustained in the framework of SYNTHESYS.

TDWG Task Group on Access to Biological Collection Data (ABCD)

A task group chaired by W. Berendsohn with the aim to maintain the XML-based standard for biological collection data (ABCD), which was developed by a the CODATA Working Group on Biological Collection Data access (2001 to 2002,) and the CODATA Task Group on Access to Biological Collection Data (2003-2006), with support from the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council of Scientific Unions.

Concluded projects:

Data capture software for German research collections: SPECIFY

A 2-year development project carried out by the BGBM in collaboration with 4 partner institutions. Financed until January 15, 2005 by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the GBIF-DE Programme..

European Network for Biodiversity Information ENBI

The BGBM's contribution to ENBI (a EU networking project) consists of the connection of 100 collection databases to the BioCASE network, which provides rich content (ABCD) networking based on the same philosophy as the GBIF collection networking efforts.

A 3-year research and implementation project at the BGBM started Oct. 1, 2001, coordinated by Dr. Regine Jahn, financed by the German Federal Ministry of Research under the BIOLOG Programme.

A one-year development project with the aim of implementing software assisting BioCASE ABCD providers with mapping database attributes to concepts represented in the ABCD schema. Although being primarily focused on ABCD the software will be configurable to work with any content defining XML schema.

Concerted action project (6 partners) coordinated by the Natural History Museum, London. 1.1.2000 - 31.3.2003. Financed under the EU's 5th Framework Programme, Research Infrastructures. The BGBM was responsible for the development of a prototype for joint access to distributed collection databases.

Proyecto Flora de Cuba - Specimen database

An implementation project at the BGBM, supported by the Association of Friends of the BGBM, implemented a specimen database for the Flora of Cuba project.

A research and implementation project at the BGBM, 1.5.2000 - 30.6.2002, financed by the German Federal Ministry of Research under the BIOLOG Programme.

BGBM-coordinated concerted action project. 1.8.1997-31.12.1999. Financed under the EU's 4th Framework Programme, Biotech. The Access Service is implemented under the follow-up project BioCASE.

BGBM-coordinated concerted action project. 1.8.1993-31.4.1996. Financed under the European Commission's 3rd Framework Programme, DG XII, Biotech. Superseded by BioCISE.