Distributed System of Scientific Collections

ICEDIG – Innovation and consolidation for large scale digitisation of natural heritage – is the first official step towards DiSSCo. It refines certain elements of the DiSSCo research infrastructure. It addresses the technical, financial, policy and governance aspects necessary to operate such a large distributed initiative for natural sciences collections across Europe.

The SYNTHESYS programme might be best known for the access it provides to natural science collections since 15 years. But it does so much more than that! Networking Actions and Joint Research Activities are equally part of SYNTHESYS. In its latest iteration SYNTHESYS+ it also provides virtual access to digital collections – a big step towards DiSSCo.

To build and extend the network that supports DiSSCo is the task of the MOBILISE COST Action. The far reaching networking and training project will strengthen knowledge exchange and capacity building. The best part: It is open to join for all institutions in COST countries involved in research for biodiversity and geodiversity informatics.

Bringing together Environmental and Earth System Research Infrastructures to look for synergies is the ultimate goal of projects for the cluster of these RIs, the latest being ENVRI-FAIR. It started in January 2019 and will connect the cluster to the European Open Science Cloud.

To conduct species-based biodiversity research you need to know two things: their names, so everybody speaks about the same species, and if they have been described before. To look that up, you need a species checklist and taxonomic hierarchy. That is the Catalogue of Life. Und to run such a service, you need a functioning infrastructure: The Catalogue of Life+