New Call: Ebbe Nielsen Challenge 2024
GBIF’s annual incentive competition, the Ebbe Nielsen Challenge, opened its call with the aim of recognizing innovative tools, both new and existing, that use the biodiversity data of this network, and promote science for research.
A jury, made up of experts, will evaluate the proposals taking into account qualities such as replicability, openness, relevance and novelty. The winning projects will receive a prize pool of 20,000 euros.
The reception of proposals closes on August 14, 2024. Until this date, individuals and teams will be able to prepare tools and techniques that improve the access, usability and quality of open data on biodiversity to present them in this annual competition of open initiatives.
The winners will be announced in September this year at the 31st meeting of the GBIF Board of Directors, in Porto (Portugal).
What can be created?: inspiration for proposals
Proposals are expected to provide practical and pragmatic solutions for the GBIF network, these may be new applications, visualization methods, workflows or analysis, or development based on existing tools or features; while advancing biodiversity informatics and biodiversity data management, in relation to the mission and GBIF strategic plan.
One way to find ideas, problems or close approaches that you want to follow is to review the winners of previous editions, as well as their proposals.
Proposals can take multiple forms, which participants choose to develop, such as new applications, visualizations, methods, workflows or analyzes often (but not always) that make use of the GBIF API to access the data. Proposals may also consider expanding capabilities or building on existing tools available in the GBIF network.
Proposals must benefit multiple stakeholders, including users, publishers, and data stewards. Those interested in participating can review the GBIF communications strategy to see how the organization characterizes its audiences.
Summary
The following summary does not constitute a replacement for the Official Regulations of the 2024 call. Questions and queries can be sent to ENChallenge@gbif.org.
Inscription
Deadline
August 14, 2024, 8 p.m. (Argentina)
Eligibility
The challenge is open to individuals, teams of people, organizations with their officials.
The following profiles cannot participate in the challenge: current members of the GBIF Secretariat, people who currently have contracts with the GBIF Secretariat, members of the GBIF Scientific Committee and Heads of Delegation to GBIF.
Participation requirements
Participants must complete the registration form, which provides information about the proposal, including:
- Name or title of the proposal
- Team members and their participation
- Summary type abstract and motivation
- Operating instructions
- Links to visual resources (prototype, demo, video, screenshots, slides, etc.)
- Links to materials needed for the proposal or any appropriate online repository
IMPORTANT: the presentation must be made in English
The jury and the GBIF Secretariat must be able to do the following with the proposal:
- Access, operate or review the proposal without any associated cost
- Operate the proposal with available hardware (if it is stand-alone type)
- Repeat any process or routine, if the proposal is a script or other type of automated solution
Participants can prepare and document their entries in a repository or platform of their choice: GitHub, Jupyter Notebook, Dryad, FigShare, Open Science Framework or your own website.
By encouraging the use of tools that participants are familiar with and comfortable with, it is hoped that anyone interested in submitting a proposal will be able to focus on the what, why and how questions.
- What is the proposal
- Why it is important to the GBIF communities it aims to serve
- How does it work
Evaluation criteria
A panel of expert judges in the scientific, computer and technological fields will evaluate the proposals based on the following criteria:
- Openness and replicability: Are the constituent elements of the presentation, such as code and content, freely available and transparent? Are they properly licensed?
- Applicability: Does the proposal have sufficient relevance and reach so that the communities GBIF supports can use or build on it?
- New Has a significant part of the proposal been developed specifically for the challenge? Submissions based largely or entirely on previously published work are not considered eligible entries.
Winners of previous editions of the Ebbe Nielsen challenge
See the full call for the 2024 edition of the Ebbe Nielsen Challenge in GBIF website