GBIF Young Researchers Award 2021 call for applications open
As every year, the GBIF Secretariat, on behalf of the network of National Participants (including Spain), has opened the call for applications for the Young Investigator Award 2021.
This call is aimed at graduate students who wish to work with GBIF biodiversity data in their master's or doctoral studies. The main objective is to recognize and encourage innovative research and discoveries in the field of biodiversity informatics by graduate students.
This year the program will award two prizes of €5,000 each. This financial endowment will be used to recognize the work of two early career researchers, preferably one master's and one doctoral student.
Eligibility Criteria
All candidates enrolled in the program must be enrolled in a graduate degree program to be eligible for the Young Researchers 2021 award. In addition, candidates must be from one of the countries participating in GBIF or be a student at an institution located in one of these nations.
Students must be nominated by the heads of delegation and node directors of the GBIF participating countries.
Registration deadlines by country for 2021
Although the deadline set by the GBIF Secretariat for the receipt of nominations is June 21, the deadlines of each nation must be applied. In the case of Spain, the date is May 31.
- May 30: United Kingdom
- May 31: Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Spain and the United States.
The new deadlines for each country will be published on the call page, although you can also follow the news about new dates on the GBIF Twitter account through the hashtag #YoungResearchers.
Application submission process
Students who wish to participate must submit an application to the Head of Delegation or node administrator of their country as a GBIF Associate or Voting Participant (you can consult the complete list here), which will be reviewed at the national level. In the case of Spain, you must submit your proposal to info@gbif.es.
Then, each national head of delegation or node administrator will be able to send a maximum of two nominees per country to the GBIF Secretariat.
It is important to ensure that submissions are complete and include all the necessary elements listed on this website, as incomplete proposal submissions will not be considered.
Winner selection criteria
The GBIF Scientific Committee will ultimately analyse the nominations that have been submitted to select the final winners of the awards. This selection will be made on the basis of three criteria:
- Innovation and originality
- Strategic use and significance of data accessed through GBIF
- Effectiveness and measurable impact on the advancement of biodiversity informatics and biodiversity conservation.
If your proposal is not selected, the program offers the possibility of updating it and resubmitting it in subsequent years' competitions.
What is GBIF?
GBIF is an intergovernmental initiative composed of countries and international organizations that are committed to collaborate in advancing free and open access to biodiversity data. Through its nodes, participating countries provide data on species records based on common standards and open source tools that allow them to share information. These data come from many sources, from specimens held in museums and collected in the 18th and 19th centuries to geotagged photos taken with smartphones and shared by amateur naturalists.
It currently has more than 1.6 billion records and 57,000 datasets of great utility for researchers conducting studies related to biodiversity and the general public.
GBIF-ES is the National Biodiversity Information Node sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and managed by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The creation of this node was a consequence of the adhesion of our country to GBIF through the signing of the first "Memorandum of Understanding
