DiSSCo Prepare

DiSSCo Prepare

Project Coordinator Dimitris Koureas, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, dimitris.koureas@naturalis.nl
Funding Source Horizon 2020, H2020-INFRADEV-2019-2020 – Grant Agreement No. 871043
Duration February 2020 – January 2023

With 120 organisations across 21 European countries, The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) represents today the largest ever formal agreement between organisations of this type, in the world. These organisations have joined forces to develop and operate as a distributed pan-European Research Infrastructure. The DiSSCo RI works for the digital
unification of all European natural science assets under common curation and access policies and practices that aim to make the data easily Findable, more Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR). DiSSCo will deploy a comprehensive portfolio of services across three main categories:

    1. e-Science Services,
    2. Physical and Remote Access Services and
    3. Support and Training Services.

DiSSCo Prepare acts as the main vehicle through which DiSSCo RI will raise its overall maturity and set itself in a position to implement its construction programme. DiSSCo Prepare aims at

    1. improving the overall Implementation Readiness Level
      (IRL), and
    2. delivering the DiSSCo Construction Masterplan.

The DiSSCo IRL is defined as the measure of the ability to embark on specific implementation actions (construction projects) based on clear, actionable guidelines with minimum risk, and across the scientific, data, financial, technological and organisational dimensions of the infrastructure. DiSSCo Prepare will raise the readiness level of the RI across all five dimensions.

DiSSCo Implementation Readiness Level

The DiSSCo Prepare approach to improving the overall
Implementation Readiness Level of DiSSCo, across the five identified
dimensions.

Alongside the process of improving the overall IRL of DiSSCo, the DiSSCo Prepare project will deliver a corpus of material to be used during the construction phase. This material will constitute a comprehensive and actionable ‘Construction Masterplan’ for DiSSCo RI. The DiSSCo Construction Masterplan will be considered as the final output of the project and will effectively be used as the organisational, financial and technical guiding framework for the construction of the infrastructure (including establishing the legal entity).