The Taxonomic Databases Working Group (www.tdwg.org) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) have received funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to strengthen the infrastructure supporting the interchange of biodiversity data.

A TDWG Infrastructure Project Team has now been established and is seeking requirements for globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) for biodiversity informatics, and to establish infrastructure to support their use.

This review will consider how GUIDs could benefit all communities that are exchanging biodiversity data. TDWG and GBIF are therefore seeking input from institutions with an interest in organismal biodiversity data (including, but not limited to: natural history museums, herbaria, culture collections, gene banks, zoological and botanical gardens, and biological monitoring projects).

The First International Workshop on Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) for Biodiversity will be held on February 1-3, 2006. This workshop will review potential GUID technologies and then provide recommendations for a development strategy to TDWG. Progress and results can be seen at the GUID wiki.