News
Open Call: Up to 60,000€ for marine biodiversity monitoring data
The Horizon Europe DTO-BioFlow project has launched an Open Call of up to 60,000€ to international networks, citizen science networks, research institutes, universities, NGOs, and other eligible entities that manage marine biodiversity data. Applications for the call are being accepted until January 17th, 2024.
The ocean and its biodiversity are essential to life on this planet. Comprehensive data on biodiversity and related human and environmental pressures are crucial to understand its current state, how it may change and how to address challenges. Protecting and restoring biodiversity is one of three objectives of the Horizon Europe Mission to restore our oceans and waters by 2030, enabling the EU to reach its Green Deal and Biodiversity 2030 targets.
Although significant advances have been made in Europe to collect, harmonise, and make data on marine biodiversity available, a large portion of existing data remains unavailable or inaccessible. This limits its societal value and weakens the capacities of digital twins to simulate and study "what if" scenarios enabling effective conservation, management and policy development. This type of data is referred to as “sleeping data”.
DTO-BioFlow is tasked with helping activate this “sleeping data” by enabling integration and building of the biodiversity component of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO) by making these data publicly available through EMODnet Biology, the portal that provides open and free access to interoperable data and data products on temporal and spatial distribution of marine species from European regional seas.
The primary goal of the call is to establish workflows and procedures that promote and facilitate the sharing and integration of missing marine biodiversity data into the EU DTO. Third parties can apply for a maximum funding of 60,000€ by performing activities like developing data flow pipelines and ensuring that data is formatted, standardized, quality-controlled, conforms with accepted international standards and Open Access principles.
Role of OBIS in DTO-Bioflow
OBIS is responsible for building the biodiversity component with other relevant biodiversity data sources and will assist in developing an inventory of biodiversity data gaps. The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) which hosts the European OBIS node is coordinating the DTO-Bioflow project and also manages this call.
More info
Application process, eligibility, funding and assessment: https://dto-bioflow.eu/marine-biodiversity-data-open-call
DTO-BioFlow project: https://dto-bioflow.eu/
DTO-BioFlow partners: https://dto-bioflow.eu/partners
Questions: opencalls[at]dto-bioflow.eu