EUBrazilOpenBio project embarks in the biodiversity research area

Officially started on 1st October 2011 and funded by the European Commission (FP7-ICT) and the Brazilian Minister of Science Technology and Innovation (MCTI) - National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) within the 2010 edition of the EU-Brazil coordinated call, EUBrazilOpenBio “Open Data and Cloud Computing e-Infrastructure for Biodiversity” will set-up a virtual environment -namely an e-Infrastructure of open access resources-, to tackle the complexity of Biodiversity Science, in line with the European and Brazilian drive to join forces and deploy cloud computing solutions to address scientific challenges in fields such as environment modelling, biodiversity and life science.

"Europe and Brazil share many cultural and social roots and values, which are reflected in the way we have been addressing the socio-economic potential and the challenges of ICT. […] Both sides have a lot to gain in further strengthening collaboration in this field."

Ms Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, released this statement in conjunction with the Workshop "Brazil-EU Cooperation in ICT R&D" which took place on 7th & 8th November in Brasilia, Brazil, crowning the launch of a new coordinated call for research and development, while the new project had just started exactly to respond to European and Brazilian need of cooperation in biodiversity.

The principal product of the project will be to operate an e-Infrastructure for the biodiversity user communities working on biodiversity taxonomy and niche modelling. “A user services support and operation centre will be set-up to support our user communities while exploiting the Virtual Research Environment provided by the EUBrazilOpenBio platform“ explained Vinod Rebello, EUBrazilOpenBio Brazilian Scientific Director. “The success of EUBrazilOpenBIo will be measured by the level of our users' satisfaction”.

EUBrazilOpenBio has already been presented in Europe, at the GRDI2020 workshop on 18th October in Brussels, and in Brazil at the Workshop "Brazil-EU Cooperation in ICT R&D" 7th Nov 2011, Brasilia by Vanderlei Perez Canhos, Brazilian Coordinator, and Vassil Alexandrov, European Coordinator. It has two main objectives: to empower user groups to leverage data e-Infrastructure of Open Access resources, tools and services & to educate collaborative communities, especially next generation scientists, on the benefits of such data e-Infrastructure, as an example of cooperative research without frontiers.

For more information please refer to the project website.