Liberating Biodiversity Data - Extraction & FAIR Reuse

Introduction

Liberating biodiversity data is key to advancing open and reusable science. This event highlights methods and tools for extracting data from literature and making it FAIR, interoperable, and ready for reuse. Bringing together scientists and researchers across the globe, this event fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange on extracting, structuring, and reusing biodiversity data.

This introduces participants to practical methods for extracting biodiversity data from scientific literature and converting it into machine-readable formats such as JATS XML. Through hands-on use of tools/software, participants will explore manual and semi-automated workflows for data extraction, annotation, quality control, and validation. The programme also showcases CODATA India–led AI and NLP-based approaches to biodiversity knowledge extraction, highlighting how automation can complement expert curation for large-scale literature mining, corpus building, and semantic integration.

Objectives

• Data & FAIR Foundations:

  • Understand FAIR data principles; relevance to biodiversity science and policy.
  • Role of CODATA and international data infrastructures in enabling open science.

• Plazi & Literature-Based Data Liberation:

  • Understand the Plazi workflow and associated repositories
  • TreatmentBank, BLR, GBIF, BiodiversityPMC
  • Learn how biodiversity data is extracted from publications and converted into machine-readable formats (e.g. JATS XML).
  • Use GoldenGate and related Plazi tools for manual and semi-automated data extraction.
  • Understand manual vs automated workflows for conversion, annotation, and retrieval.
  • Learn about materials citation, annotation quality control, and data validation.
  • Use the GGI program, Plazi’s main instrument for data liberation.
  • Work toward certification as new users of Plazi’s tools

• CODATA India-Led AI & Knowledge Extraction:

  • Learn about India-developed AI/NLP-based biodiversity knowledge extraction toolkits.
  • Understand how AI can complement manual curation for: Large-scale literature mining, Building domain-specific corpora (regional, taxon-specific, journal-specific)
  • Semantic enrichment and cross-repository integration
  • Discuss ethical, technical, and sustainability challenges of AI-driven extraction.

• Data Reuse & Impact:

  • Identify major digital biodiversity data repositories, their specificities, and query methods.
  • Explore reuse pathways for extracted data in: Research & synthesis, Conservation planning, Environmental assessments, Education and policy
  • Design small group projects demonstrating end-to-end data liberation and reuse.
  • Strengthen India–Plazi and India–global partnerships for long-term collaboration.

Who can register?

• Undergraduate and graduate students in biological and environmental sciences
• Early-career researchers and faculty
• Museum professionals and collection curators
• Biodiversity informatics practitioners & enthusiasts
• Data scientists and AI researchers interested in life sciences
• Professionals from government agencies and NGOs working on biodiversity data

Date

MARCH 24 - 27, 2026

Venue

• Inaugural session at Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi – 110002
• Hands-on session at National Institute of Immunology (BRIC-NII), New Delhi - 110067

Registration

Click Here to Register

Course Coordinators

• Dr. Gitanjali Yadav: NIPGR, CODATA India
• Dr. Julia Giora : Plazi, Brazil
• Dr. Narendra Kumar, BRIC-NII
• Dr. Felipe Simões: Plazi, Brazil