Persons interested in being nominated should contact their country's GBIF Node, or an appropariate Associate Participant Organisation Node.

The GBIF Governing Board's Science Committee has four Subcommittees: one each for the four thematic areas of the Work Programme. The four areas are:

Data Access and Database Interoperability (DADI),

Digitisation of Natural History Collections (DIGIT),

Electronic Catalogue of Names of Known Organisms (ECAT), and

Outreach and Capacity Building (OCB).

Each of these four areas has a Programme Officer (PO) who is part of the Secretariat staff. Each PO is advised by a Subcommittee of the Science Committee of the GBIF Governing Board. The Science Subcommittee (SSC) members are persons who act in their professional capacity to advise GBIF as it develops each of the thematic areas in its Work Programme. SSC members serve for a term of two years, and may serve not more than two consecutive terms. SSC members may come from any country, but must be nominated by a GBIF Participant.

Nominations are due by 15 December 2003. Names of nominees, accompanied by a short (1 or 2 paragraphs) statement of the nominee's expertise, should be sent via e-mail or FAX (+45 35 32 14 80) to the GBIF Programme Officer for the particular GBIF thematic area:

DADI: Donald Hobern dhobern@gbif.org

DIGIT: Larry Speers lspeers@gbif.org

ECAT: Per Bjørn pdpbjorn@gbif.org

OCB: Beatriz Torres btorres@gbif.org

The Chair of each of the SSCs will select a slate of 10 to 15 persons from among the nominees, and submit this for approval to the Science Committee. Upon approval at that level, the slates for all four SSCs will be submitted to the Executive Committee for approval. The selection process is expected to be complete by 1 February 2004.

The newly constituted GBIF Science Subcommittees will meet in Mexico City 26--30 April 2004 to advise concerning the formulation of the GBIF Work Programme for 2005.