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talk · Thursday 24 September · 08:30–⁠08:35 · FORUM

Sustainability and collaboration in a time of uncertainty

Libby Ellwood · Sustaining the Geo- and Biodiversity Data Ecosystem: Standards-Driven Approaches to Long-Term Resilience

Recording time 13:37–20:16Open on Vimeo ↗

Summaries and key moments are machine-produced. Check the recording for the speaker’s exact words.

The short versionSustaining biodiversity data infrastructure requires treating technology, people and a diversified funding portfolio as one interconnected system.

Overview

What this was about

Libby Ellwood introduced the International Partners for the Digital Extended Specimen (IPDES) and framed the symposium around sustaining the biodiversity data ecosystem. She presented the Digital Extended Specimen as a unifying architecture and identified three sustainability needs: technology and infrastructure, people, and funding. She argued that sustainability will come from a diverse, resilient funding portfolio rather than a single replacement source, and described how IPDES is taking this session to several conferences before synthesising the outcomes in a webinar.

Why it matters. It sets out the framing used by the whole symposium and makes the case that preserving servers and software is insufficient without the people and funding that keep the connections working.

Key ideas

In the room

  • IPDES aims to coordinate a globally integrated network of stakeholders through technical and social infrastructure: data, tools, standards, people and working practices.
  • The Digital Extended Specimen combines North American 'extended specimen' and European 'digital specimen' ideas: physical specimen, digital record, and links to further information and relationships.
  • Three sustainability needs emerged: technology and infrastructure, a resilient and inclusive community, and funding.
  • Funding should come from a diverse portfolio: long-term public investment, philanthropy, international partnerships, existing organisations and new models recognising the socioeconomic value of biodiversity data.
  • Versions of the session were run at the iDigBio Digital Data conference, SPNHC, TDWG and ICOM-NatHist, to be synthesised in a later webinar.
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Notable moments

In their words

Transcript

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Programme abstract

Sustainability and collaboration in a time of uncertainty

Libby Ellwood

Over the past several decades, geo-and biodiversity sciences have been reshaped by digitization, data mobilization, and data integration efforts, giving rise to the community-developed Digital Extended Specimen as a unifying framework. These initiatives have produced substantial infrastructure, new tools and workflows, and a more connected global community. However, as funding cycles conclude, urgent challenges remain, including sustaining social, physical, and digital infrastructure; maintaining and aligning software and data quality work across networks; retaining expertise; coordinating governance; and supporting workforce development.

This presentation frames geo-and biodiversity data infrastructure as a distributed socio-technical system in which semantically structured and linked data, standards development, and data harmonization enable coordination, reduce duplication, and support research. It emphasizes that achieving machine-actionable, FAIR-and CARE-compliant data depends on sustaining a standards-based ecosystem of data providers, aggregators, platforms, repositories, and users.

Drawing on current efforts within the networks of the International Partners for the Digital Extended Specimen and the Biodiversity Collections Network, along with the broader community, this talk explores how coordinated approaches and research-and machine-ready standards can better align social, physical, and digital infrastructures needed to support community goals. It highlights opportunities to leverage economies of scale, strengthen governance and collaboration, and expand the relevance of biodiversity data across domains, offering a forward-looking perspective on building a more sustainable and integrated data ecosystem.

Submitted to the conference programme before the talk, so the talk itself may differ.