Dear all,
At the GBIF Governing Board meeting in Kilkenny (October 2018) the work program and budget was approved. In the 2019 Budget GBIF will contribute 40k euros to help support the Living Atlases community.
Following on from this agreement, there was some discussion in Kilkenny about how best to allocate these funds. An opportunistic meeting was held with some members of the Living Atlases community who where present in Kilkenny. This included representatives from Spain, France, Portugal, Australia, Sweden, Brazil. That group came to the conclusion that the funds would be best put to use by supporting a “Living Atlas Coordinator” position.
Following on from the meeting, we created the following document (called “The Kilkenny Accord”) that attempts to outline scope and some details of this position:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14tyjEPaDpIo9B_8wvHDKbfMRLO81FviTsVQt9IT1...
The proposal is to recruit a coordinator and expect this needs to be someone within the community. In addition, the majority of the countries present agreed to provide additional funds to support the role (5k euros per country).
We are aware that quite a few members of the Living Atlas community were not present at this meeting. At this stage, we’d like to ask the wider community if they agree with the proposal outlined.
Additionally, we would like to ask if there are more participants willing to make a financial pledge that would be used towards the coordinator, setting up the project management structures and/or workshops. The Living Atlas community aims to be inclusive, so any group may contribute regardless of their participation status in GBIF - e.g. an institution or a national center may contribute. An early indication of finances available in 2019 will be helpful to help plan activities.
Please feel free to respond to this mailing list, or to email directly.
Kind regards
Dave Martin Atlas of Living Australia david.martin@csiro.au