GBIF – the Global Biodiversity Information Facility – is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world’s governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth.
This year, in celebration of 25 years, a new article published in Biodiversity Data Journal offers a historical overview from GBIF’s inception to its current status as an essential biodiversity data network and platform.
The information below provides an overview to GBIF, giving historical context as well as a future look, and is taken from its website.
The NBN Trust is proud to act as the UK node of GBIF. The UK is a voting participant in the GBIF network and has been a member since 2001.
A growing global network
GBIF’s work is carried out through a distributed network of 70 country participants and 42 organisational participants, each represented by a national or thematic node that mobilises data, builds local capacity and connects biodiversity communities to GBIF’s infrastructure. More than 2,700 institutions, including museums, universities, government agencies, citizen science platforms and a growing number of private-sector organisations, have published data through the network, with new publishers joining at a rate of more than four per week.
Data mediated through GBIF now underpins an average of eight new peer-reviewed research papers per day and have supported more than 15,000 publications to date, spanning fields from taxonomy, ecology and environmental change to food security, public health and invasive species management. An independent 2023 assessment estimated that the societal benefits derived from GBIF exceeds investments into the organisation manyfold, especially, but not only, in regards to researcher time savings.
The organisation’s impact also extends into international policy. GBIF-mediated data supports indicators under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, inform assessments by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and play an increasingly prominent role in supporting nature-related reporting and disclosures from the private sector.
Adapting to new kinds of data
Over 25 years, GBIF has expanded to accommodate new sources of biodiversity data – from digitised natural history specimens and citizen science observations to DNA-based records and, most recently, structured survey and monitoring data designed to support large-scale biodiversity monitoring. In 2026, GBIF adopted the Catalogue of Life‘s Extended Release (COL XR) as its taxonomic backbone, the result of a multi-year collaboration to build shared infrastructure for reconciling and harmonising species names across datasets and geographic boundaries.
Persistent gaps remain
Despite the growth of GBIF, several significant challenges remain, as unsustainable land and resource use drives global biodiversity loss. GBIF-mediated data continues to reflect long-standing imbalances as regions with high biodiversity, particularly in the Global South, remain digitally underrepresented through data, while well-studied, charismatic groups such as birds are overrepresented compared to less surveyed taxa. Furthermore, many marine species and hard-to-identify cryptic habitats and organisms remain inadequately documented.
Addressing these gaps was part of the original motivation for creating GBIF in 2001, and it remains valid today. Resolving these asymmetries depends on broader shifts in global scientific funding, data culture and capacity, alongside GBIF’s continued efforts to expand its Participant network and to diversify the types of data it can mobilise.
Looking ahead
Guided by its 2023–2027 Strategic Framework, GBIF has prioritised continued growth of its Participant network, expanded support for survey and monitoring data and increased integration of DNA-derived biodiversity records – all aimed at closing longstanding geographic and taxonomic gaps in digital biodiversity data worldwide.
Want to hear more?
Kyle Copas, Head of Advancement and Communications, GBIF Secretariat is giving the Keynote address at the NBN Conference – “GBIF@25: Converting research relevance into policy action and impact”, so come along and find out more. Read about the NBN Conference.