"Virtual Biodiversity Research and Access Network for Taxonomy" (ViBRANT) is a European Union FP7 funded project running December 2010 to 2013 that will support the development of virtual research communities involved in biodiversity science. Our goal is to provide a more integrated and effective framework for those managing biodiversity data on the Web. ViBRANT provides: 

• A Virtual Research Environment (Scratchpads) where users can safely store, share and manage their research information.
• Analytical services for users to build identification keys and phylogenetic trees.
• A publication platform for users to automatically compile biodiversity science manuscripts from their research database.
• A portal for users to centrally access publicly accessible biodiversity research information and literature.
• Training, helping research communities to use these tools and services.
• A standards compliant technical architecture that can be sustained by biodiversity research community.

Get involved by: Starting a Scratchpad, getting training, accessing data, becoming a developer or a Scratchpad ambassador.

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I am delighted to be able to share with you the results of ViBRANT's first year review. This was written by three external reviewers (Barbara Aronson, Jessie Kennedy and Tom Dedeurwaerdere) after a day-long series of presentations from members of ViBRANT's management team at the end of January.

• Vince Smith's blog
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A few days ago, a special issue of ZooKeys, edited by myself and Lyubomir Penev, published its jubilee Issue No 150 "e-Infrastructures for Data Publishing in Biodiversity Science", comprising 18 papers in total plus two editorials.

• Vince Smith's blog
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During and after the kick-off meeting for ViBRANT there was much discussion on the “non-commercial” (NC) limitation, which is part of the default licence scheme added to content created within the ViBRANT infrastructure. A strict definition of NC makes this content incompatible with a growing body of other free material (e.g. Wikipedia) and potentially rules out other beneficial uses that a content creator might have intended to allow.

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Scripting Life: the science behind ViBRANT was a two-day conference held in Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, Paris, France on 20th and 21st January 2011. This meeting formed the kick-off meeting for ViBRANT. Over 55 delegates participated in the meeting including taxonomists, computer scientists, publishers, and representatives from other major biodiversity projects. Day one consisted of a series of keynote talks on the major thematic components and philosophy of the ViBRANT project.

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