About the project

SAFRED is a Belspo funded BRAIN project in which KULeuven, UGent, ULg, INBO, UNamur, BBPf, BOKU and RBINS collaborate to publish Belgian freshwater biodiversity data. The SAFRED project runs from end of 2015 until early 2018, and the mobilised data will remain available on-line through the databases of the Belgian Biodiversity Platform and the Freshwater Information Platform.

SAFRED represents a concerted effort towards systematic recovery and publication of data generated in freshwater research. Project partners have been engaged in numerous research projects dealing with freshwater environments (e.g. B-BLOOMS, BIOMAN, Pondscape, Manscape, Boyekole Ebale Congo 2010 expedition). While selected results from these projects have been subject of scientific papers, the underlying data have not yet been publicly released in a systematic manner. By joining forces and exchanging expertise, partners will assemble datasets, document information on the generation of the data and its storage (metadata), standardise the data and publish it online along with an accompanying (meta)data paper and/or synthetic scientific paper.