The CoopBioPlat - A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level is a project supported by the ERANet-LAC program, of the type Pilot Coordination Action, which aims to promote the international collaboration within the GBIF network, to develop digital platforms for the visualization and analysis of biodiversity data at the country level. This project is coordinated by the Spanish GBIF Node and with the participation of the GBIF Nodes of Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, France and Portugal.
The main goals of the project are:
- Establish an institutional cooperation agreement for the development of biodiversity data portals (at national level and based on the website Atlas of Living Australia, ALA);
- Strengthen the technical cooperation and make an update on the recent technological developments on the ALA.
The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is a web platform with several components, dedicated to the visualization and data query of biodiversity information over the internet. Developed in open source by the Australian research infrastructure with the same name, which is also the Australian Node of GBIF, it provides the users with state-of-the-art technology for species occurrence data query, species pages, spatial analysis, portals citizen science and crowdsourcing, phylogenetic analysis, among others. To this extent, it is not a redundant platform of the international GBIF data portal, because it adds layers of analysis that are available to users. Several participants in GBIF identified the ALA as a preferred platform for the implementation of a national data portal, and was created a community of developers and implementers. The Portuguese GBIF Node has decided to adopt ALA as the platform for the implementation of the national portal for biodiversity data.
The ALA is thus a great base for promoting international collaboration on digital platforms for the visualization and analysis of biodiversity data, within the GBIF network. By signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, the participants provide the level of commitment that consolidates the national participation and establishes a proper framework for intra and international synergies. It is, likewise, important that this collaboration platform in extended to other partners, not limited to the GBIF network, but for example, for national research infrastructures (e.g. PORBIOTA), and even to the international cooperation with other CPLP countries wishing to develop their biodiversity data platforms.
The results of the project will be achieved through the signature of the institutional Memorandum of Understanding between the participating countries, the preparation of which took place at an international meeting held in Buenos Aires. It is also reinforced the technological capacity if the teams of the participating nodes, through a technical workshop held in Madrid about ALA.