About the Caribbean Researchers Portal

The Caribbean Researchers Portal makes the research community of the six islands — Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba — visible and connected. It is a connecting layer for profiles and matchmaking, not a data silo: we link to existing sources (ORCID, DCBD) rather than duplicating them.

Background

This portal builds on phase 1: a mapping survey of 383 Caribbean researchers carried out by RE-Quest on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK). 71% of respondents opted in to being featured in a portal like this.

The intended long-term home after delivery is CaRP — the Caribbean Research Platform, run by NWO — which provides the institutional infrastructure for knowledge exchange across the six islands.

Complementary, not a datasilo

The portal links to ORCID for publications, to the Dutch Caribbean Biodiversity Database (DCBD) for biodiversity research, and to existing institutional sites. We do not aim to replace these sources — we aim to surface the people behind them and make connections easier.

Phase 2

• Self-service profiles (authentication + write backend)
• Live data source (Google Sheets as CMS or JSON API)
• Live ORCID API for real publications
• Languages: Papiamentu and Spanish
• Import of the actual phase 1 opt-in list (71%)
• Live statistics dashboard