As announced in May, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (http://www.moore.org/) has awarded a grant of nearly $1.5 million to establish a more formal process for development and maintenance of the Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG, http://www.tdwg.org/) standards. These standards are essential to the further development and successful operation of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) since they provide the models GBIF is using to exchange biodiversity data. They are also in use by a significant number of other biodiversity projects and provide a common basis for international data exchange.

The project will address the following areas:

· Improvement and strengthening of the TDWG standards development process

· A web site including collaboration tools and document management to support the TDWG working groups and publicise the data standards

• Contracts to develop software tools and documentation for the TDWG data standards

• Globally unique identifiers for biodiversity informatics

• A long-term funding and infrastructure model for TDWG operation

The grant funding includes support for a project team to work on these areas until the end of 2007. GBIF and TDWG are therefore pleased to announce that the following three contractors have been engaged to work on the project:

• Lee Belbin (Hobart, Tasmania) will act as TDWG Project Manager, with particular responsibility for the TDWG standards development process and the coordination of contracts for software and documentation

• Roger Hyam (Edinburgh, Scotland) will act as TDWG Architect, with particular responsibility for technical coordination of TDWG data standards and tools

• Ricardo Scachetti Pereira (Campinas, Brazil) will act as TDWG Senior Software Engineer, with particular responsibility for Globally Unique Identifiers and the TDWG web site

The team members will continue to be based in their home locations and so will be able in addition to represent TDWG on a more regional basis.