Joaquim Santos, Data Steward at the GeneT, a Teaming for Excellence project integrated in CNC-UC, was one of the four winners of the 2026 GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge, an international initiative of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) that recognises innovative proposals to improve the access, quality and use of biodiversity data.

The award recognises the development of georeference.it, an open source platform that promotes collaborative participation in improving and enriching biodiversity data. The project is grounded in the principles of Open Science, interoperability, data sharing and reuse, international collaboration and open software development, and aims to contribute to a more integrated and reusable biodiversity data infrastructure.

georeference.it is a personal project, built on Joaquim Santos's previous career in Biodiversity Informatics, particularly his work with biological collections, the digitisation and publication of biodiversity data, and open data infrastructures. The project continues that path, exploring community collaboration and open technologies to improve the quality and reuse of scientific data.