Ecolynx Project: Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation

Income generation/Not-for-profit

The sections Constituency sensitivity and Economic viability set the context for the development of the envisaged product within a "not-for-profit", "public interest" environment. Nevertheless, whilst they are genuine non-profit organizations, the consortium partners derive their income largely using typical market behaviours in the commercial domains of publishing, consulting and sale of services. For the principal partners, UIA and WCMC, it is vital that any product they produce can recover sufficient income to enable its continued improvement and updating.

This project is highly dependent upon what might appropriately be termed "hidden" partners. These are the providers of information, which are likely to include prime users of that information and, as such, highly motivated to ensure its accuracy and improvement.

In addition to direct generation of income by the venture, the partners, whether separately or jointly, seek to ensure its continuing sustainable development of the project through arrangements with other partners. These arrangements might take the form of sponsorships for specific categories of information or contractual development of specialised areas of the information.