Sustainability and collaboration in a time of uncertainty

What this was about

Libby Ellwood introduced the International Partners for the Digital Extended Specimen (IPDES) and framed the symposium around sustaining the biodiversity data ecosystem. She presented the Digital Extended Specimen as a unifying architecture and identified three sustainability needs: technology and infrastructure, people, and funding. She argued that sustainability will come from a diverse, resilient funding portfolio rather than a single replacement source, and described how IPDES is taking this session to several conferences before synthesising the outcomes in a webinar.

Why it matters. It sets out the framing used by the whole symposium and makes the case that preserving servers and software is insufficient without the people and funding that keep the connections working.

In the room

• IPDES aims to coordinate a globally integrated network of stakeholders through technical and social infrastructure: data, tools, standards, people and working practices.
• The Digital Extended Specimen combines North American 'extended specimen' and European 'digital specimen' ideas: physical specimen, digital record, and links to further information and relationships.
• Three sustainability needs emerged: technology and infrastructure, a resilient and inclusive community, and funding.
• Funding should come from a diverse portfolio: long-term public investment, philanthropy, international partnerships, existing organisations and new models recognising the socioeconomic value of biodiversity data.
• Versions of the session were run at the iDigBio Digital Data conference, SPNHC, TDWG and ICOM-NatHist, to be synthesised in a later webinar.

Notable moments