Some of the world’s leading institutions, experts, and scientific infrastructures relating to biodiversity information are uniting around a new 10-year roadmap to ‘liberate’ data presently trapped in research publications. This initiative is known as the ‘Libroscope’.
Notably, CETAF participates in multiple projects which support the free access to biodiversity data. For instance, the open letter to COP16 delegates.
The initiative aims to enable the creation of a ‘Libroscope’. It means a mechanism for unlocking and linking data from scientific literature to support understanding of biodiversity, just as the microscope and telescope previously revolutionized science. Importantly, the plan largely builds on existing technology and workflows, and does not rely on the construction of a new technical infrastructure.
These proposals emerged from a symposium involving 51 experts from 10 countries. It took place in August 2024 at the 7th-century monastery at Disentis in the Swiss Alps, supported financially by the Arcadia Fund. Significantly, the symposium was a 10-year follow-up to the 2014 meeting at Meise Botanic Garden in Belgium. It led to the Bouchout Declaration on open biodiversity knowledge management. The Disentis meeting evaluated progress since then, and furthermore, identified priorities for the decade ahead.
The participants in Libroscope noted that accessing data within research publications is often very cumbersome, with databases disconnected from each other and from the source literature. Consequently, liberating and linking data from such publications—estimated to encompass more than 500 million total pages—would represent a compelling mission for the next decade.
Building Global Consensus for Open Biodiversity Knowledge with Libroscope
Achieving this mission will, moreover, support future research and deepen understanding of biodiversity. Furthermore, it will be crucial for assembling knowledge assessments such as those by IPBES on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
During the Libroscope symposium, participants agreed on a decade-long roadmap outlining clear actions to unlock biodiversity knowledge from literature. Notably, the main vision aims for full use of biodiversity knowledge within an open science framework by the year 2035.
Consequently, the Disentis Roadmap, developed post-symposium and now public, has already received strong international institutional and expert support. So far, it has been endorsed by 26 institutions and 46 experts representing five continents and multiple disciplines.
For example, signatories include key natural history institutions like Meise Botanic Garden, MNHN Paris, Berlin’s Botanical Museum, and Kew Gardens. Additionally, infrastructures like GBIF, BHL, LifeWatch ERIC, Catalogue of Life, and SIB are backing the roadmap.
Moreover, major journal publishers such as Pensoft and EJT have joined the initiative alongside leading biodiversity research institutions.
Lastly, international networks including TDWG and CETAF have also pledged their support for implementing the roadmap’s objectives.
Join the Movement: Help Realize the Libroscope Vision
Libroscope roadmap remains open for new signatures before its action plan launches at the Living Data conference in Bogotá.
The original signatories hope more institutions and individuals worldwide will join and help shape the roadmap’s implementation.
Funders’ engagement will also be essential to achieving the roadmap’s objectives.
By 2035, the roadmap of Libroscope sets out these specific goals:
- Major biodiversity funders and publishers will support publishing data that follows FAIR principles: findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.
- Biodiversity publications will be in machine-readable formats, with non-copyrightable content flowing into public data repositories.
- Published biodiversity research will be fully AI-ready, openly available for training and properly labelled for machine learning, ethically and legally.
- Research and infrastructure grants will include dedicated funding to ensure access to biodiversity data and related knowledge.
Global Experts Rally Behind the Libroscope Vision
Donat Agosti of Plazi, who convened the Disentis symposium, highlighted a major opportunity to revolutionize biodiversity monitoring through digital technologies and genomic tools. He emphasized the importance of liberating the vast research data still locked in scientific publications. The proposed ‘Libroscope’ aims to unlock historical knowledge and make it actionable in the digital age, benefiting both people and nature.
A recent example is the launch of data portals for the European Journal of Taxonomy (EJT) and the Biodiversity Data Journal, under the GBIF-hosted portal programme. These portals use Plazi’s workflow to extract reusable data from static PDFs, making it available on platforms like GBIF, Catalogue of Life, ChecklistBank, BiodiversityPMC, and Zenodo.
Laurence Bénichou of EJT stressed that scientific publications must be integral to the research cycle. The Disentis Roadmap moves the community from open access to FAIR access—ensuring data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.
Steven Dessein of Meise Botanic Garden reaffirmed support for the roadmap, citing open biodiversity data as critical to addressing climate and conservation challenges. Christophe Déssimoz of SIB said that applying open, structured data principles to biodiversity ensures the information is usable across domains.
Thomas Borsch of the Berlin Botanic Garden emphasized that taxonomic research relies on machine-actionable data. The Libroscope will support new workflows and improve biodiversity assessments. The MNHN in Paris underscored the importance of linking taxonomy with digital and molecular data and using text mining to extract vital knowledge.
Christos Arvanitidis of LifeWatch ERIC noted the roadmap aligns with their mission to improve FAIR biodiversity data. Lyubomir Penev of Pensoft called on publishers to deliver accessible science. Tim Robertson of GBIF and Olaf Bánki of the Catalogue of Life encouraged broader participation to unlock data essential for tackling the biodiversity crisis.