EDIT project - European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy
Taxonomy provides the basis for understanding biodiversity. Overcoming the taxonomic impediment involves both having enough trained taxonomists and having taxonomic information available to those who need to use them.
The European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy - EDIT- is a project sponsored by the European Commission that will work to overcome the taxonomic impediment through international cooperation and joint work programme.
The EDIT project started on 1 March 2006 and will last 5 years.
There are 27 leading European, North American and Russian institutions involved in the network, among which 3 Belgian ones: the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) and the National Botanic Garden of Belgium (NBGB).
The Belgian institutions have joined EDIT as a consortium called "BE-TAF" (BElgian TAxonomic Facilities). The "BE-TAF" is responsible for the coordination of all activities relating to education, training and public awareness.
