Call for project proposals for the mobilization of collection specimen data and species occurrence data from Ukraine in GBIF. This grant program targets activities for data preparation and ensuring the appropriate data quality for data publication. The digitization of collection data and analog data such as field diaries are eligible activities. New fieldwork expeditions to collect new species observations and/or material samples are not eligible for funding through this call.
The deadline for submitting your initial proposals is 15th September 2022. The submission form will be open for those who passed BioDATA Ukraine data mobilization summer course 2022 soon after the call is published. Revisions might be requested to improve the feasibility of the project. Decisions on the proposals which will be funded will be announced on 1st October 2022. The expected time for the preliminary report is 15th February 2023, end of project activities - 1st September 2023.
Successful applications receive funding as a personal grant. Beneficiaries must be affiliated with a Ukrainian institution or provide proof of the institution’s consent to access collections and the mechanism of data maintenance by the institution or other digital hosting facilities (e.g. PlutoF is hosting some Ukrainian datasets with images). Affiliated institutions can provide some self-funded work or financial contributions to complement the financial support from the BioDATA program. The total budget for this call is 45 000 Euro (40 000 Euro provided by the University of Oslo Natural History Museum through the BioDATA project and 5 000 Euro provided by NLBIF, including funding for the coordination and follow-up in Ukraine) and the maximum contribution to each project is 5 000 Euro. We will consider collaborative projects positively, in such a case the maximum contribution for the project will increase proportionally.
Project requirements
- Projects are intended to be done in collaboration with your home institution. Work time from team members or institutional support staff can be included as an own contribution.
- This call addresses Ukrainian researchers affiliated with Ukrainian institutions. The funding is provided as a personal grant to the beneficiaries.
- All project beneficiaries must have passed the BioDATA Ukraine data mobilization summer course 2022 to be eligible for funding. Other project members can be included in the proposal based on self-funding only. Students unable to attend lectures because of military service are eligible for funding.
- Only data mobilization activities performed during the project period are eligible for funding. Previous activities can be included as self-funding.
- Datasets prepared for publication must follow the international Darwin Core data standard. Characteristics of eligible datasets include, for each data record, a mandatory:
- taxon name,
- geographic location (georeferenced in decimal degrees), and
- temporal description (date or time period).
- Scientific taxon names must be validated against relevant regional or global checklists such as the Catalogue of Life or Global Names.
- We recommend that datasets are validated using the GBIF data validator tool.
- All resulting datasets must be openly published to GBIF (using GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit - IPT, BioCASE, or similar). Datasets can be prepared following the format of the Darwin Core spreadsheet templates provided by GBIF (or the templates from GBIF Norway). Datasets can be published on the Ukrainian IPT, the ECA cloud IPT, or similar.
- Sensitive species occurrence data must be managed in the appliance with the guidelines and regulations provided by the Ukrainian Law on the Red Book, paragraph 12[1]. We recommend referring to GBIF’s "Current Best Practices for Generalizing Sensitive Species Occurrence Data".
- [1] “It is not allowed to publish information about the exact location (growth) of the objects of the Red Book of Ukraine and other information about them, if this may lead to deterioration of the conditions of protection and reproduction of these objects.”
- Datasets from this call should follow the FAIR data principles (Wilkinson 2016).
- The resulting datasets with collection specimen data and species occurrence data must be licensed either as Creative Commons Zero (CC0) or as Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY-4.0) to be compatible with the GBIF data sharing agreement.
- If the application includes the preparation of species occurrence data from another data owner than the project coordinating institution, the respective public access to these data must be agreed upon and consolidated with the data owner in advance.
- Funding from this call will only be provided for the digitization, preparation, and subsequent publication of either collection specimen data or species occurrence data obtained via observations. Funding for fieldwork to collect information or biological material is not eligible for funding under this call. Funding for research activities or activities to manage or physically conserve the respective biological material is not eligible for funding under this call.
- We recommend that data owners prepare metadata descriptions on the dataset level following the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) and that all specimens and data records are assigned persistent and globally unique identifiers (such as URN, UUID, or DOI).
Additional information
Successful project datasets can be given the opportunity for support to publish a data paper for your dataset. We are also open to any additional applicants’ initiatives regarding possible scientific or social media promotion of their projects.
We recommend all successful projects granted from the call prepare a data management plan (DMP) describing how the mobilized dataset will be managed in compliance with best practices and the data requirements of this call.
If successfully funded projects are significantly delayed, or the prerequisites (technical, scientific, economical, or with respect to progress) are no longer present, then the Ukrainian BioDATA coordinator must be notified.
Proposals are evaluated based on the criteria here in the call and in the application form.
For questions regarding the application, contact
- Call coordinator: Oleh Prylutskyi <oleh.prylutskyi@gmail.com>, <prylutskyi@karazin.ua> https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5730-517X
- BioDATA project manager: Hugo de Boer <h.de.boer@nhm.uio.no> https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1985-7859
- GBIF Norway Node Manager Dag Endresen <dag.endresen@nhm.uio.no> https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2352-5497
- GBIF Netherlands (NLBIF) Node Manager Niels Raes <niels.raes@naturalis.nl> https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4329-4892
- GBIF Norway helpdesk at <helpdesk@gbif.no>
- BioDATA teachers <biodata-teachers@gbif.no>
Resources
Data standards
- Darwin Core terms
- Darwin Core template
- Excel data template from GBIF
- Excel data template from GBIF Norway
- Excel data tool from GBIF Norway
- Ecological Metadata Language (EML)
- Integrated data Publishing Toolkit (IPT)
Scientific taxon names
Data validation tools
Species of policy concern in Ukraine
- Sensitive species lists (the Red Data Book of Ukraine, plants and fungi, animals)
- GBIF’s Current Best Practices for Generalizing Sensitive Species Occurrence Data
Data papers
- GBIF Northern Eurasia call for data papers
- https://www.gbif.org/data-papers
Data management plan (DMP)
- Data management plan guidelines
- Data management plan example (GBIF.no)
Financing
The call is managed by the Diku-funded BioDATA project.
BioDATA is funded by the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (DIKU project CPEA-LT-2017/10049).
The Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HKDir) was established on 1 July 2021, under the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. HKDir is a result of the merger of agencies including the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (Diku).
