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.
By organizing a session of this meeting, Agropolis International and Bioversity international aim at gathering worldwide experts in Biodiversity Informatics in the French Centre for Agronomic research. It also provides an excellent opportunity to increase the international awareness on Agrobiodiversity Informatics activities and particularly, on Agropolis and Bioversity flagship projects which are included as strongs components in that area. Speakers will be invited to
talk (i) on ‘Pl@ntNet’ project – a Plant Computational Identification and Collaborative Information System, (ii) on the bioinformatics components of the ARCAD flagship programme, and (iii) on ‘The Global Information System on Crop Genetic Resources’ of Bioversity International. By combining all necessary expertise, the Agropolis session of this meeting aims at identifying challenges for enabling a strong connection of the locale initiatives (Pl@ntNet, ARCAD, etc.) with international standards used worldwide, and a major visibility of their originalities. This group of experts will work at developing and adapting international information and informatics standards on the important current topics relevant to agronomy and biodiversity information.
Project Number : 0902-015
Year : 209
Type of funding : AAP
Project type : AAP INRIA
Start date :
10 Jun 2009
End date :
30 Jun 2010
Flagship project :
Non
Project leader :
Daniel Barthelemy
Jean-Louis Pham
Project leader's institution :
INRA-INRAE IRD
Project leader's RU :
AMAP DIADE
Budget allocated :
12896.4428 €
Total budget allocated ( including co-financing) :
17666.36 €
Funding :
RTRA