13 August 2026
Text by DiSSCo National Node
A major new chapter has been completed in the effort to make Greece’s natural collections more accessible. The Digitization of Greek Scientific Collections has transformed millions of specimens held in Greek scientific collections into valuable digital resources for science. Led by the Natural History Museum of Crete at the University of Crete (NHMC-UoC), DiSSCo Greece has recently presented its brand-new, shining website: https://dissco-gr.nhmc.uoc.gr/
The scale of the work is impressive. More than 2.3 million specimens were digitised, alongside approximately 230,000 detailed images and 7,700 3D models. Apart from the NHM Crete, the effort involved seven other major Greek research organisations:
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- University of Patras
- National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
- Goulandris Natural History Museum
- Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania
- Natural History Museum of the Lesvos Petrified Forest
- University of the Aegean
Screenshot of the DiSSCo Greece website (homepage)
The resulting data are now available through the DiSSCo-GR digital portal, giving researchers, educators, and other users a new way to explore Greece’s scientific heritage. Built around FAIR data principles, the platform is designed to make information easier to find, access, connect with other datasets, and reuse, while also linking Greek collections with European Research Infrastructures. Supported by €5 million from the EU’s NextGenerationEU Recovery and Resilience Facility, the initiative represents a significant investment in research and biodiversity knowledge—and creates a lasting digital resource for understanding, studying, and protecting Greece’s natural heritage.
Do you want to know more about the technical side of DiSSCo? DiSSCo puts different technical knowledge platforms at the scientific community’s disposal:
DiSSCoTech: Get the latest technical posts about the design of DiSSCo’s Infrastructure
DiSSCo GitHub: Code hosting for DiSSCo software, version control and collaboration
DiSSCo Modelling Framework: A WikiBase tool that is configured to create an abstraction of the DiSSCo data model