WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY_NEXT?
It is a conference that brings together, for the first time at this scale, major international organisations, research scientists, and policy makers to jointly identify socio-technical bottlenecks and horizon-scan opportunities around data-intensive biodiversity and geodiversity research.
biodiversity_next aims at:
- Promoting innovation in biodiversity & geodiversity information science and applications;
- Sharing and enhancing community data standards and information management practices;
- Improving domain reach to new audiences (incl. scientific, policy and industry);
- Inspiring new generations to more enthusiastically embark on data-intensive science around bio- and geo-diversity;
- Building community consensus on pivotal technical and sociocultural aspects of the community practices.
Please visit the event website to sign up for the newsletter to stay updated or – if you want to get involved – apply to become a member of the Programme Committee. This committee will be responsible for the overall conference programming, including: (i) overall selection of topics, (ii) plenary and breakout (parallel) sessions planning, (iii) selection of keynote speakers, and (iv) abstracts submission and review processes.
Registration for the conference will open in the last couple of months in 2018 with the first draft programme to follow shortly after in early 2019.
Who Should Attend the Conference?
Early career and established scientists working in data-intensive disciplines of biological and geological diversity science, e-infrastructures operators, data managers and science policy makers. CETAF and TDWG members are particularly encouraged to attend, as this acts also as their annual meeting.
What Disciplines Are Covered?
All data-intensive biodiversity and geodiversity disciplines, including (but not limited to): e-taxonomy, biodiversity and ecological informatics, biodiversity and geodiversity data standards, natural science collections information, citizen science etc
What Will the General Format of the Conference Be?
biodiversity_next will follow a plenary & breakout model. Plenary sessions will be action packed with TED-style talks, elevator pitches competitions and lively debates. Breakouts will focus on specific topics and will run in parallel throughout the day. Workshops and training courses will also run before and after the meeting. GBIF, CETAF and DiSSCo will also co-locate their main governance and administrative meetings.
A list and short description of all accepted events with CETAF involvement can be downloaded here.