Organization of the Agropolis session within the ‘TDWG- Biodiversity Information Standards’ 2009 annual meeting, Montpellier, 9-13 November

The international Biodiversity Information Standards body called TDWG is a non profit and educational association affiliated with the International Union of Biological Sciences. It builds with members the communities of practice that develop and validate informatics standards and tools to link biological information resources. TDWG was formed to establish international collaboration among biological database projects, and to promote the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the World’s heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large. All biodiversity research projects include a work package on information and informatics technologies that enables sharing the knowledge generated by scientists and the transfer towards developing countries or policy makers. This area is rapidly evolving and the scientists need to adapt their communication and product delivery strategy accordingly. To keep the research community up to speed, regular contacts with the international community are necessary. The TDWG annual meetings offer perfect platforms for experts to meet, exchange views and technologies with their peers. From this group, internationally validated information standards are produced and promoted worldwide.
The 2009 TDWG meeting, held in November in Montpellier is the principal follow-up meeting of the important coming ‘e-biosphere’ conference in London (1-3 June 2009) that will set the roadmap for the biodiversity information and informatics standards for the next decade.