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The ALA Australian Biodiversity Data Mobilisation Program is managed by the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and designed to improve the scientific understanding of Australia’s rare and remarkable biodiversity. Through the 2025 program, successful applicants could receive up to AUD $20,000 or AUD $50,000 to support the digitisation of existing biodiversity data and its integration into the ALA.

This program supports Australian museums, biological collections, herbaria, government and non-government organisations, and research teams to digitise data, making them accessible and available through the ALA, and internationally through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Eligibility

Applicants must be associated with an Australian Institution to be eligible for the program.

Existing ALA partnership projects that already receive ALA or National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) financial support are ineligible for this program.

Applicants must agree to provide the data to the ALA in Darwin Core Standard under a Creative Commons licence, made open and accessible through the ALA if successful.

Program Details

Funding amounts


The 2025 program offers two levels of funding:

  • Up to AUD $20,000 for smaller projects
  • Up to AUD $50,000 for larger projects

What data are in scope for the program?

  • Data must be in the form of Australian species occurrence records
  • The program cannot support new expeditions or field programs but should focus on mobilising existing data, or biological specimens that require digitisation
  • Data mobilisation efforts should align with national priorities
  • See our FAQ’s page for further information.

What can I use the funding for?

Funding can be used to support data mobilisation and/or infrastructure investments.

Data mobilisation investment could include:

  • Staff time to digitise specimens in biological collections including scanning
  • Conversion of existing analogue data, such as in field notes into the Darwin Core Standard for provision to the ALA.

Infrastructure investment could include:

  • Purchasing digital imaging equipment to create digital data from physical specimen records. For example, camera equipment to photograph biological collections, and scanners to copy specimen labels.

Selection process

An independent review panel chaired by Ecologist, and Head of Science at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Dr Kirsti Abbott will select the successful recipients. The panel will consist of members from the Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, a representative from the ALA, and an independent ecologist with extensive experience in conservation in protected places and private land conservation.

Timeline

Applications for the 2024 round of the ALA Australian Data Mobilisation Program closed on Friday 26th April 2024.

The successful applicants will have one year upon receiving funding to complete their projects and deliver data to the ALA in Darwin Core Standard.

The 2025 program will open for applications in Q2 2025 with dates TBC – this will be published on our website, and social media once the applications are open.

Contracting

Successful applications will be expected to enter into a formal agreement with CSIRO to receive funding. See examples here.

Projects will be contracted to institutions, not to individuals.

More information

To assist applicants with preparing their submissions, we are providing access to a non-editable Excel sheet containing the questions asked of applicants before filling in the application form.

Please note that downloading and filling in this Excel file offline will not automatically submit your application. These files are solely for assisting applicants with preparing their applications. You must still fill in and submit your application through our online form.

Submit your application

Applications for the 2024 ALA Australian Biodiversity Data Mobilisation Program have now closed. Applications for the 2025 Program will open in Q2 of 2025.

Past funded projects:

2024:

  • Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) – contributing over 260,000 records from remote and historically under-surveyed regions such as the Kimberley and Cape York, focusing on threatened species and restricted-range endemics.
  • Museums Victoria – digitising a significant Click Beetle collection, adding approximately 15,000 records and 99 new species to the ALA.
  • Royal Botanical Gardens Victoria – mobilising data from approximately 1800 Australian macrofungi specimens, including a selection of field images.
  • University of Melbourne – digitising non-vascular bryophyte and liverwort specimens collected over the last 20 years, contributing contemporary taxon distribution and habitat occupancy data for under-represented taxa in the ALA.
  • West Australian Museum – contributing a significant collection of 3,500–4,000 trapdoor spiders, alongside extensive field notes to enhance understanding of these species.

2023:

  • National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria – mobilising more than 5,000 specimen-based occurrence data records from Australian macroalgae.
  • Western Australian Museum with Kit Prendergast – mobilising thousands of native bee data records from physical specimens collected southwestern WA, representing more than 200 bee species.
  • Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, South Australia – making >30,000 bryophyte and >6,000 lichen records available to the ALA through digitisation of physical collection labels.
  • D’Estrees Entomology and Science Services – delivery of 7,000 -10,000 insect occurrence records from Kangaroo Island, focused on underrepresented taxa.
  • Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery – mobilising more than 15,000 invertebrate species records representing Tasmanian spiders, echinoderms, cnidarians and annelids.

2022:

  • New South Wales Department of Primary Industries – mobilising plant pest and disease data from the NSW Biosecurity Collections (~600,000 records).
  • South Australia Museum – mobilising the Sout Australia Museum’s Australian Biological Tissues Collection of 39 donated frozen tissue collections of Australian freshwater fishes (around 90% of all known species and ~46,000 records).
  • Queensland Museum Network – mobilising and enhancing data from the Cribb Australian Fish Trematode Collection (>20,000 records of >1,000 fish species).
  • Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery – mobilising wildlife molecular and tissue data (> 8,500 sample vials and 1,650 formalin-fixed specimens in the histology collection).
  • Edith Cowan University – mobilising plant and fungi data from the Robert Brown Herbarium.
  • Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority – mobilising data in the Kings Park and Botanic Garden Herbarium collection (18,200 specimens).