International Coordination of an Interdisciplinary Global Research Infrastructure

Brussels SciColl Conference Report (pdf, 192kb)

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, 8-9 February 2010

Object-based scientific collections are the essential infrastructure for research in many fields of science.  Fields such as biology, earth and space science, anthropology, and biomedicine rely on the specimens in permanent collections that are held in museums, herbaria, culture collections, tissue banks and other institutions around the world.  International cooperation within each discipline has developed to great degrees in some cases such as biology, in which a Global Biodiversity Information Facility has been established.  In contrast, very little collaboration and coordination has developed across disciplinary boundaries, despite the importance of interdisciplinary research.  The OECD’s Global Science Forum has catalyzed the development of Scientific Collections International (SciColl), an international and interdisciplinary coordinating mechanism.  SciColl has a dual mission to increase the scientific impact of collections and to improve their organizational management and efficiency. 

The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences will host the first SciColl conference in Brussels on 8-9 February 2009.  This conference is sponsored by the European Science Foundation and by the Belgian Science Policy Office. It will bring together 60-80 researchers and representatives of diverse scientific collections, their parent institutions, government and research funding agencies and other stakeholders concerned with scientific collections.  Participants will be selected to ensure balanced representation of geographic regions and scientific disciplines.  The goals of the conference are to:

• Raise awareness of the potential benefits to science and society of greater international and interdisciplinary coordination of scientific collections
• Present and discuss the proposed SciColl mission, governance, and work programme
• Discuss potential SciColl activities that will provide benefits to collections in the form of higher efficiency, standards based on best practices, and improved workforce training
• Explore potential interdisciplinary research initiatives that rely on access to scientific collections
• Participate in a Science Symposium that focuses on SciColl’s ‘pioneer’ research initiative: “Collection-based Research on Global Change since the Dawn of Humanity”
• Disseminate information on the benefits and obligations of SciColl membership, and to encourage institutional membership in SciColl.

Conference Agenda 

Monday, 8 February 2010:

9:00 – 10:00 Session 1:  Welcome and Overview; Session chair Patrick Grootaert

• Welcome by host organization (pdf, 2.08Mb)
  Dr. Patrick Grootaert, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels

• The global landscape of scientific collections (pdf, 166Kb)
  Dr. Scott Miller, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA

• SciColl: Overview of the concept (pdf, 996Kb)
  Dr. Richard Lane, Natural History Museum, London, UK

• SciColl as part of the research infrastructure landscape (pdf, 1.19Mb)
  Dr. Marc Heppener, Director of Science and Strategy Development, European Science Foundation

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee break 

10:30 – 12:30 Session 2:  The role of collections in global research: What are limits of current information and what new information is needed for breakthroughs? Session chair David Schindel

• Introduction of proposed SciColl research programme on Environmental Change (pdf, 3.18Mb)
  Dr. David Schindel, Consortium for the Barcode of Life, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA

• Climate, Environment, and Ecosystem Change from Paleo Proxy Collections (pdf, 2.46Mb)
  Dr. David Anderson, World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Colorado, USA

• Hypothesis-driven research of changing disease patterns: The role of collections with three case studies (pdf, 1.87Mb)
  Dr. Gregory Glass, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

• Importance of natural history collections in climate change research (pdf, 2.46MB)
  Dr. Adrian Lister, The Natural History Museum, London, UK

• Data Management in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (pdf, 3.31Mb)
  Rob Koopman, Group on Earth Observations (GEO), Geneva, Switzerland

• Open discussion of interdisciplinary collections-based research

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch 

13:30 – 14:30 Visit to research collections 

14:30 – 15:30 Session 3:  Breakout discussion groups. Each group will discuss:

• Interdisciplinary solutions to research bottlenecks using collections 

• Other opportunities for interdisciplinary research based on collections 

• SciColl’s proposed research programme on global change 

Discussion group A: Moderators Richard Lane and Gregory Glass
Discussion group B: Moderators David Schindel and David Anderson
Discussion group C: Moderators Christoph Häuser and Michel Guiraud

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break 

16:00 – 17:30 Session 4:  Presentation and discussion of breakout discussion groups;
Session chair Richard Lane

• Rapporteur reports on obstacles and opportunities 

• Moderated discussion to identify priorities 

17:30 Adjourn 

19:00 Dinner at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences  

Tuesday, 9 February 2010:

9:00 - 10:00 Session 5:  Improving scientific collections; Session chair Leo Kriegsman

Presentations of four initiatives to improve collections and their management:
 

• SciColl’s proposed programme of work to improve collection management (pdf, 415Kb)
  Dr. Leo Kriegsman, Naturalis Museum, Leiden, The Netherlands

• Global Biological Resource Centre Network (GBRCN): Aiming to improve the management and networking of collections of laboratory-held living microorganisms and cultured cells (pdf, 1.77Mb)
  Dr. David Smith, GBRCN Demonstration Project General Manager

• Korean National Research Resources Center (pdf, 2.98Mb)
  Prof. Yeonhee Lee, Director General KNRRC, Korea
   
• SYNTHESYS Networking activities: Assessing and sharing best practice in European collections to ensure their future survival and value as an infrastructure (pdf, 1.22Mb)
  Dr. Rob Huxley, Natural History Museum, London, UK
   

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee break

10:30 – 12:30 Session 6:  Plenary discussion; Moderator Christoph Häuser 

• Proposed SciColl Programme of Work

• Identification of priorities 

• SciColl membership 

• Next steps in the development of SciColl 

12:30 Conference adjourns and lunch

Afternoon: meeting of SciColl Steering Committee 

RBINS Supporting Team

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
Vautierstreet, 29
1000 Brussels
Belgium
www.naturalsciences.be

• Tine Mallaerts (Conference administration, tine.mallaerts@naturalsciences.be)
• Carole Paleco (Conference administration)
• Francis Strobbe (Webmaster, francis.strobbe@naturalsciences.be)
• Isabelle Van Loo (Marketing & Partnership)