Historical data are essential for biodiversity research in order to understand long-term trends and changes in ecosystems. However, the greatest challenge lies in the fact that much of this valuable information is still available only in analog form—such as archival documents, handwritten notes, or botanical and zoological collection specimens. Identifying, transcribing, and systematically processing these sources is highly time-consuming and technically complex. Our Topic Table aims to bridge this gap by bringing together expertise from various disciplines to develop a practical and applicable concept for digitization and data mobilization. In doing so, we enable the community to access historical collections more efficiently and make them available as FAIR data for modern scientific analyses—including for researchers without a historical focus.

The project “Digitization of Historical Biodiversity Data” is being carried out within the framework of the NFDI4Biodiversity Topic Tables for which the first call was issued in 2025—a collaborative format that connects stakeholders across the biodiversity community to jointly develop solutions in research data management. Learn more about the Topic Tables here.

• Concept Development: Creating a well-founded guideline for the digitization of historical biodiversity sources, including criteria for assessing relevance
• Method Development: Establishing best practices for transcription and structured data extraction
• Ensuring Reusability: Laying the groundwork for the long-term availability and integration of historical data into modern research data infrastructures

• Regular Exchange: Conducting virtual meetings to coordinate and align the work of the different groups
• On-site Workshops: Hosting expert workshops at the University of Passau to collaboratively develop the concept and deepen specific topics such as transcription and data collection
• Community Feedback: Presenting interim results within the NFDI4Biodiversity consortium and gathering feedback from the expert community to finalize the concept

• Status: Active
• Start: 01/2026
• Expected End: 04/2027

Project Leads/Contact Persons

• Malte Rehbein, University of Passau, Chair of Computational Humanities (Malte.Rehbein@uni-passau.de)
• Bettina Haas, University of Passau, Chair of Computational Humanities (Bettina.Haas@uni-passau.de)

Additional Contributors

The Topic Table team also includes staff from the following institutions:

• Museum of Natural History Berlin
• University of Bremen
• Freie Universität Berlin, Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum
• University of Münster, CIBRA
• General Directorate of the Bavarian State Archives
• Technical University of Dresden, Chair of Botany/Herbarium Dresdense
• IT Center of the Bavarian State Natural Science Collections

We warmly invite anyone interested to contribute their expertise and data resources to our Topic Table. We would be delighted to hear from you—please feel free to contact our representative Bettina Haas by email (see contact details above).

The NFDI4Biodiversity Topic Tables provide a collaborative space for the biodiversity community to advance key topics in research data management. Based on an open call, four topics were selected for 2026, which are integrated into the consortium’s work program and supported organizationally. NFDI4Biodiversity provides the structural framework, facilitates professional networking, and ensures that results are made visible and can be sustainably developed further.

The aim is to bring together expertise, align existing approaches, and produce tangible outputs—such as white papers, guidelines, or roadmaps. The resulting contributions support practical work with biodiversity data, promote shared standards, and strengthen reliable, interoperable data use within the community.

Topic Table projects are generally designed to run for one year. To stay informed about upcoming calls, feel free to subscribe to our community mailing list and follow us on LinkedIn.

An overview of all current Topic Tables can be found here.