ViBRANT

Research Directions:

Marine biodiversity

Bioinformatics and biodiversity informatics

Description:

This project focused on the collective output of biodiversity science, aiming to make these data more transparent, accountable, and accessible. The mobilisation of biodiversity data can address global environmental challenges, contribute to sustainable development, and promote the conservation of biological diversity. Through a platform of web based informatics tools and services, a successful data-publishing framework was built (Scratchpads) allowing distributed groups of scientists to create their own virtual research communities supporting biodiversity science. The infrastructure is highly user-oriented, focusing on the needs of research networks through a flexible and scalable system architecture, and is offering adaptable user interfaces for the development of various services. ViBRANT has supported the management, hardware infrastructure and software development of this system and established connections with the broader landscape of biodiversity initiatives including PESI, Biodiversity Heritage Library (Europe), GBIF and EoL. The system was also interconnected with the LifeWatch Service Centre, ELIXIR and EMBRC objectives, all part of the ESFRI roadmap. ViBRANT also reached out to new multidisciplinary communities including citizen scientists by offering an enhanced suite of services and functionality.