The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international network and data infrastructure funded by governments worldwide, aimed at providing open access to data on all forms of life on Earth.

Coordinated from its Secretariat in Copenhagen, the GBIF network operates through nodes and participating organizations. It utilizes common standards (such as Darwin Core) and open-source tools to integrate information encompassing hundreds of millions of species records. These range from historical museum specimens collected in the 18th and 19th centuries to current citizen science records obtained via smartphones. This massive database enables scientists and policymakers to publish hundreds of peer-reviewed studies each year.

The GBIF Secretariat prepares an annual work programme within a five-year strategic framework, which is reviewed and approved by the GBIF Governance.

About GBIF Spain

Spain is a founding member of this network. The Spanish node, functions as a distributed infrastructure involving entities from all the country’s autonomous communities (research centers, universities, environmental administrations, citizen science initiatives, etc.) alongside the Coordination Unit.

Through its Biodiversity Data Portal (https://datos.gbif.es/), it provides access to more than 57 million biodiversity records (as of January 2024). These are managed under a common standard that includes quality control procedures, open-access licenses, and mechanisms to give credit to data sources (DOIs).

More information: https://www.gbif.es/

Data Portal: https://datos.gbif.es/