More pictures of the inauguartion can be seen in this Danish language article of the event.

GBIF is an international organization dedicated to making the world’s information about biodiversity freely and universally available. Biodiversity is a word that means all of the world’s species, their genes, and the ecosystems in which they live. To be able to sustainably use biodiversity, people everywhere would benefit from better access to the scientific information known about biodiversity.

Denmark was selected to host the GBIF Secretariat after an international competition that was judged at the second meeting of the GBIF Governing Board, which was held in Bonn, Germany in 2001. With the support of the Danish government, the University of Copenhagen, in the lead of a consortium of Danish research institutions, prepared the bid.

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility will make possible ready access to data and information from natural history collections, libraries and observational databases all over the world. This is especially important for the developing world, where the majority of the world’s species are concentrated, because most of the data and information about those species is currently in the museums and libraries of the developed world.

Henrik Enghoff, Director of the Zoological Museum, said "the opportunity to host the GBIF Secretariat is a very special one for the University of Copenhagen. Our Museum holds much of the kind of information that GBIF wants to make available. Working with GBIF is a way to help our colleagues in developing countries, and to move into the modern era of museum information services."