The GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge is an annual incentive prize that seeks to inspire innovative applications of open-access biodiversity data by scientists, informaticians, data modelers, cartographers and other experts.
Read the call for submissions to the 2019 GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge
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 has evolved 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.
2018 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge
1st Prize
- Checklist recipe: a template for reproducible standardization of species checklist data: Lien Reyserhove, Damiano Oldoni and Peter Desmet, Belgium
- Ozymandias: a biodiversity knowledge graph: Roderic D. M. Page, United Kingdom
2nd Prize
- The bdverse: Tomer Gueta and Yohay Carmel, Israel; Vijay Barve, United States; Thiloshon Nagarajah, Sri Lanka; Povilas Gibas, Lithuania; and Ashwin Agrawal, India
- GBIF Issues Explorer: Luis J. Villanueva, Smithsonian Institution, United States
- Smart mosquito trap to DwC pipeline: Connor Howington and Samuel Rund, United States
- Taxonomy Tree Editor: Ashish Singh Tomar, Spain
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2016 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge
1st Prize
- Exploring ignorance in space and time: Alejandro Ruete
2nd Prize
- sampbias: Alexander Zizka, Alexandre Antonelli and Daniele Silvestro, University of Gothenberg, Sweden
- GBIF Coverage Assessment Tools: Walter Jetz, Jeremy Malczyk, Ajay Ranipeta, Luis J. Villanueva, Carsten Meyer and Michelle Duong, Map of Life Consortium, United States
Honourable Mention
- BioGeoBias: Laurens Gefferts, Netherlands
- Towards global-scale species distribution models: Aafke Schipper, Jasmijn Rost, Daniela Remenska and Valerio Barbarossa
- crowdgap: Jesus Orozco
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2015 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge
1st Prize
- GBIF dataset metrics: Peter Desmet, Bart Aelterman & Nicolas Noé
2nd Prize
- BioGUID.org: Richard Pyle (United States)
Finalists
- #myGBIF: Tom August (United Kingdom)
- ecoSpace 2: Miguel Porto (Portugal)
- GBIF Soundscape: Ben Raymond & Peter Neish (Australia)
- Wallace: A Web App to Harness Biodiversity Data: Robert P. Anderson, Matthew Aiello-Lammens, Bob Muscarella, Bruno Vilela & Jamie Kass (United States, Denmark and Spain)
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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)
