Awards

The GBIF Secretariat currently presents two annual prizes: the GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge and the Young Researchers Award.

Calypso bulbosa

Calypso orchid (Calypso bulbosa) by J. Brew. Photo licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Ebbe Nielsen Challenge

The 2017 GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge will launch in early June 2017.

The GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge is an annual incentive prize competition that seeks to inspire innovative applications of open-access biodiversity data by scientists, informaticians, data modelers, cartographers and other experts. Like the Ebbe Nielsen Prize it replaced, the Challenge honours the memory of Dr Ebbe Schmidt Nielsen, an inspirational leader in the fields of biosystematics and biodiversity informatics and one of the principal founders of GBIF, who tragically died just before it came into being.

While the focus of the competition changes from year to year, Challenge entries manifest a variety of forms and approaches—new analytical research, richer policy-relevant visualizations, web and mobile applications, or improvements to processes around data digitization, quality and access.

2016 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge

How well do data about life on earth—and specifically, biodiversity data mobilized through GBIF—allow us to understand how the world works? The answer can be different based on the research question.

In 2016, the GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge focused on the question of data gaps and completeness, seeking tools, methods or mechanisms to help both data users and data holders — whether by analysing the fitness-for-use of GBIF-mediated data or by guiding and prioritizing significant temporal, spatial or other use-specific gaps for mobilization and digitization.

Winners
1st Prize

2nd Prize

  • sampbias: Alexander Zizka, Alexandre Antonelli and Daniele Silvestro
  • GBIF Coverage Assessment Tools: Walter Jetz, Jeremy Malczyk, Ajay Ranipeta, Luis J. Villanueva, Carsten Meyer and Michelle Duong

Honourable Mention

Read more

2015 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge

The opening round of the first Challenge sparked the creation of 24 innovative entries from individuals, teams and organizations. An expert jury selected six finalists who competed for two prizes—€20,000 for first place, €5,000 for second place.

2015 Winners
1st Prize

2nd Prize

Finalists

Read more

Young Researchers Awards

The Young Researchers Awards is an annual programme aimed at fostering innovative research and discovery in biodiversity informatics. The YRAs provide prizes to two graduate students—one a master’s candidate and one a Ph.D candidate—nominated by GBIF Participant countries.

Read about the 2017 Young Researchers Awards

Previous winners

2016: Juan M. Escamilla Mólgora (Mexico) and Bruno Umbelino da Silva Santos (Brazil)
2015: Fatima Parker-Allie (South Africa) and Gonzalo Enrique Pinilla Buitrago (Colombia, Venezuela & Mexico)
2014: Vijay Barve (India) and Caoimhe Marshall (Ireland)
2013: Emma Gomez-Ruiz (Mexico) and Nathan Ranc (France)
2012: Salvador Arias (Argentina) and Elkin Tenorio Moreno (Colombia)
2011: César Antonio Ríos-Muñoz (Mexico) and Conor Ryan (Ireland)
2010: Amy McDougall (United Kingdom) and Andrés Lira-Noriega (United States)

Ebbe Nielsen Prize

Prior to its 2014 reboot, GBIF awarded the Ebbe Nielsen Prize to recognize an individual who demonstrated excellence in combining biodiversity informatics and biosystematics research.

Past Prize winners

2014: Tony Rees (Australia) | video
2013: Miguel Bastos Araújo (Portugal) | video
2012: Nathan Swenson (United States)
2011: Jens-Christian Svenning (Denmark)
2010: Sujeevan Ratnasingham (Canada)
2009: Andy Jarvis (Colombia)
2008: Vince Stuart Smith (United Kingdom)
2007: Paul Flemons (Australia)
2006: John Wieczorek (United States)
2005: Pablo Goloboff (Argentina)
2004: Johan Nilsson (Sweden)
2003: Stefan Schröder (Germany)
2002: Nozomi Ytow (Japan)