The Ebbe Nielsen Prize was an international science award made annually between 2002 and 2014 by the

Global Biodiversity Information Facility The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around th ...

(GBIF), to recognize a researcher who had made substantial contributions to the field of

biodiversity informatics Biodiversity informatics is the application of informatics (academic field), informatics techniques to biodiversity information, such as Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, biogeography or ecology. It is defined as the application of information technolog ...

. The prize was established in memory of prominent entomologist and biodiversity informatics proponent

Ebbe Nielsen Ebbe Schmidt Nielsen (7 June 1950 – 7 March 2001) was a Danish entomologist influential in systematics and Lepidoptera research, and an early proponent of biodiversity informatics. The journal ''Invertebrate Systematics'' was established with si ...

, who died of a heart attack in the U.S.A. en route to the 2001 GBIF Governing Board meeting.

History

The award was created in 2001 to honour the recently deceased Danish-Australian entomologist

, who was a keen proponent of both GBIF and the biodiversity informatics discipline. At the time of its creation, the prize was the only global award for work in biodiversity. Initially set at US$35,000 and later €30,000, the award comprised a cash prize plus an invitation to give a guest lecture to address the annual meeting of the governing body of GBIF in whichever country the meeting was being held for that year. In its 2003 call for submissions, the prize was stated as being " wardedannually, to a promising researcher, normally within ten years of their entering the research field of biodiversity informatics. Candidates should be combining biodiversity informatics and biosystematic research in novel and exciting ways ... The primary selection criterion is scientific excellence as evidenced by the nominee’s research and publication record, and in particular, the innovation shown in combining biosystematics and biodiversity informatics research in their field of activity." Over the life of the prize, it was won by researchers from Japan, Germany, Sweden, Argentina, United States (twice), Australia (twice), United Kingdom, Colombia, Canada, Denmark and Portugal. In 2015, GBIF revamped the award as an incentive competition, now known as the

Ebbe Nielsen Challenge The Ebbe Nielsen Challenge is an international science competition conducted annually from 2015 onwards by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), with a set of cash prizes that recognize researcher(s)' submissions in creating software ...

List of recipients from 2002–2014

The following list of recipients is given on the GBIF web site: *2002: Nozomi Ytow (Japan) *2003: Stefan Schröder (Germany) *2004: Johan Nilsson (Sweden) *2005: Pablo Goloboff (Argentina) *2006: John Wieczorek (United States) *2007: Paul Flemons (Australia) *2008: Vince Stuart Smith (United Kingdom) *2009: Andy Jarvis (Colombia) *2010: Sujeevan Ratnasingham (Canada) *2011: Jens-Christian Svenning (Denmark) *2012: Nathan Swenson (United States) *2013: Miguel Bastos Araújo (Portugal) *2014: Tony Rees (Australia)

References

{{reflist Biodiversity International academic awards International science and technology awards