IUBS: its global position in the past two decades, an introspection
As Biology became too vast a discipline and with exponential increase in the size of thecommunity, it resulted in more and more sub-disciplines trying to address biologicalphenomena in isolation. It also changed the way Biology was funded globally, by publicfunding agencies, or charity trusts or R&D funding by profit-oriented companies. They allaimed at achieving focused deliverables in the shortest time periods. Added to this, experimental technology and data handling ability were limited to make this vast field more integrated to address biological questions at the systems-level. This resulted in the decline of importance of looking at Biological phenomena at holistic-levels. IUBS was badly hit by this as its financial resources were diminished, truncating its ability to play an advisory role.
IUBS as a global leader in Integrated Biological sciences in the 21 st Century
With better understanding of Gene-Environment interactions and ease of handling large amounts of data coming from genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics, 21 st century biological science is all about integrated approaches to study living systems along their entire scale of size and spectrum of complexity, from chemistry to biochemistry to physiology to organismal to population to ecosystem. This has made IUBS prominent again.
Additionally, the impacts of climate change, rapid urbanization, and decreased forest cover have emphasized the importance of activities (such as biodiversity, ecology and evolution, bio-nomenclature, taxonomy etc.) that are traditionally represented and supported only by IUBS among the science unions. This is reflected in the fact that IUBS was leading the biocluster of the International Council for Science (ICSU) just before its merger with ISSC to form International Science Council (ISC).
IUBS Activities
Current Scientific Programmes
- Conservation of Paleobiology in Africa (CPIA)
- Global Integrative Pastoralism Project (GIPP)
- Governance of Global Taxonomic Lists
- Open Biodiversity and Health Big Data Initiative (BHBD)
Science for Biodiversity Forum
New Initiatives
- Gender Equality in Science
- International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development 2022
- Science of Pollution-Tolerant and Climate-Resistant Plants
- Zoonotic Diseases
Education and Outreach
IUBS Webinar Series
Events Sponsored by IUBS
