Research project IM/RT/23/ADVANCE (Research action IM)
ADVANCE (Antarctic Biodiversity Data Infrastructure) seeks to establish a distributed Virtual Research Infrastructure (VRI) for the Antarctic and Southern Ocean regions, converting biodiversity data into research and policy-relevant data products.
The Antarctic and Southern Ocean region is rapidly changing in certain regions, although it remains mostly unaffected by human activity and deserves conservation. Furthermore, the region has a unique potential for collecting new knowledge on critical scientific challenges, such as those highlighted in the context of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Horizon Scan exercise and the Southern Ocean Action Plan.
The VRI will contribute to addressing these issues by enabling the connecting, enrichment, and valorisation of heterogeneous information from multiple sources in order to give insights into biological systems' reactions to climate change.
It will support the publication of all elements of the research cycle in accordance with open science principles, including the FAIR, TRUST, and CARE principles: findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), transparency, responsibility, user focus, sustainability, and technology (TRUST), collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics (CARE).
It will expand a well-established online data platform (the SCAR Antarctic Biodiversity Portal, biodiversity.aq) to meet the growing needs of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean biodiversity research communities for access to high-quality data, services, protocols, standards, workflows, and software/applications that integrate biodiversity data with environmental data from various sources to generate research and policy-relevant outputs. The methods, data, tools, and processes will all be open, reproducible, and transparent.
ADVANCE will enhance the long-term sustainability of existing and emerging facilities while eliminating redundancy. The project will work with OBIS and the GBIF to develop new biodiversity data models and improve the current standard. This enables us to develop useful biodiversity research resources such as an image library and trait databases, as well as applications that enable the creation of data products based on Essential Biodiversity Variables, Essential Ocean Variables, Essential Climate Variables, and ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables (eEOVs). ADVANCE will use SOOS, EMODnet, and IDEA to retrieve and inject environmental data. SCAR will ensure scientifically sound services and resources by collaborating closely with non-funded partners such as ULB and AAD, as well as worldwide communities.
The VRI built as part of the project will benefit researchers, industry (fisheries, tourism), and policymakers from Belgium and other ATS member states, as well as acceding countries, other international fora, NGOs, and the general public.
Better access to and sharing of analytical workflows will allow for more accurate comparisons of data collection and analysis methods, as well as support for best practices. Shared best practices, relating our research to action and policy, and raising individuals' knowledge of a remote and mysterious environment.
