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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=DE-CH link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Pro-iBiosphere is a European Union FP7 funded project to develop an outline of a future European open biodiversity knowledge management system. The Pro-iBiosphere project has been launched on September 1, 2012 for the period of 2 years addressing technical and semantic interoperability issues and challenges that will ultimately lead to a more efficient system of the management of biodiversity information. For practical reasons and to demonstrate the functionality of the proposed ideas, the test beds are primarily the production of floras and faunas produced at the partner's institutions, how they can be linked to external datasets, and how the new information can be made more widely accessible. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>A series of open workshops are scheduled in the coming two years to help to discuss, challenge and improve the specific tasks in the envisioned system. A great emphasis is given on pilot studies that demonstrate the proposed avenue. Since a great emphasis is put on data, data standards, exchange and export a big hope is put into getting the input from TDWG members.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Consortium partners are the Naturalis Leiden, the Royal Botanical Garden Kew, the National Botanic Garden Belgium, the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Sigma Orionis, Pensoft and Plazi.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>More information is available at <a href="http://www.pro-ibiosphere.eu/">http://www.pro-ibiosphere.eu/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>Donat Agosti<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Plazi / Pro-IBiosphere<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>