SciColl and our partners hosted and participated in a wide variety of events, conferences and networking activities.

An archive of our events, agendas, participants and products can be found here and in our Document Archive.

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  • Beltsville, September 2016: Stressors and Drivers of Food Security: Evidence from Scientific Collections

    USDA National Agriculture Library, Beltsville, MD, September 19-21 2016

    Stressors and Drivers of Food Security: Evidence from Scientific Collections

    (Read more about this initiative at the Food Security page...)

    Day 1: Monday, 19 September 2016

    12:00 Registration
    13:00 Welcome and Introductions
    13:45 Session 1: Keynotes
    15:30 Coffee Break
    16:00 Session 2: Collections Lightning Talks
    Representatives from different scientific collections will give short presentations on their repositories and specimens
    17:30 Adjourn

    Day 2: Tuesday, 20 September 2016

    Sessions 3-6 were devoted to presentations about different research challenges, followed by commentaries and discussion by panelists representing different collection domains. The focus was on how different collection types could contribute to research.

    9:00 Session 3: Varieties of Food
    9:30 Panel Discussion: Martin Kalfatovic (Moderator), Rod Page, Ari Novy, Patricia Mergen, Savi Natarajan
    10:00 Q&A, group discussion
    10:30 Coffee Break
    11:00 Session 4: Biological Stressors and Aides.
    11:30 Panel Discussion: Rosalind James (Moderator), Kevin McCluskey, Márcia Maués, Steve Young, Lisa Castlebury
    12:00 Q&A, group discussion
    12:30 Lunch
    13:30 Session 5: Environmental Stressors and Benefits
    14:00 Panel discussion: Faith Bartz Tarr (Moderator), Maxine Levin, Edna Makule, Muni Muniappan, John Dickie, Stephanie Yarwood
    14:30 Q&A, group discussion
    15:00 Coffee Break
    15:30 Session 6: Feeding the 10 Billion.
    16:30 Q&A, group discussion: Anne Marie Thro (Moderator)
    17:00 Adjourn

    Day 3: Wednesday, 21 September 2016

    9:00 Session 7 Participants separated into break-out groups to discuss:
    • New strategies for increasing the use and impact of collections and associated databases for food security research
      • Grace Costantino
      • Rod Page
      • Kris Gremillion
      • Shannon Dominick
      • Savi Natarajan
      • Jill Demers
      • Muni Muniappan
      • Akwasi Asamoah
    • Case studies that exemplify cross-cutting and forward-thinking uses of collections and associated databases for food security research
      • Rosalind James
      • David Inouye
      • John Dickie
      • Daniel Debouck
      • Kristina Hill
      • Maxine Levin
      • George Ziobro
      • Zafar Handoo
    • Major recommendations for the research and collections communities, funding agencies, and/or networks (such as SciColl)
      • Cyndy Parr
      • Ari Novy
      • Kevin Hackett
      • Ann Marie Thro
      • Marcia Maues
      • Patricia Mergen
      • Martin Kalfatovic
      • Edna Makule
    10:30 Coffee Break
    11:00 Discussion & Next Steps: Cyndy Parr, Moderator
    1. Break-out group summaries: Reports from each break-out group will be compiled into one set of new strategies and case study examples.
    2. Recommendations: What new capabilities, best practices and collaborations should be set as new goals for collections and researchers?
    3. Priorities: Where should resources and efforts be focused in the near-term, mid-term, and long-term?
    4. Action items: What should we do in the near-term, mid-term, and long-term to pursue these goals?
    12:30 Adjourn
    13:00 Collections Tours
    • US National Aphid Collection & US National Mites Collection
    • NAL Library and Special Collections

    Meeting Documents

    Event photos

    Press Release

    Storify

  • Berlin, June 2016: 31st Annual SPNHC Meeting & 2nd Annual GGBN Meeting

    SPNHC, Berlin 2016

    31st Annual SPNHC Meeting & 2nd Annual GGBN Meeting

    The Secretariat Office represented SciColl and GRSciColl at the 31st Annual Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) and the 2nd Annual Global Genome Biodiversity Network meetings, co-located in Berlin, Germany.

    Type Speaker Title
    Keynote- GGBN David Schindel Thematic, Demand-driven Sampling: Economics of Three Strategies
    Presentation - GGBN Eileen Graham A Global Registry for Scientific Collections: Striking a balance between disciplinary detail and interdisciplinary discoverability
    Presentation - SPNHC David Schindel Scientific Collections, Food Security and Emerging Infectious Diseases
    Demonstration - DemoCamp Eileen Graham Global Registry of Scientific Collections: Function and Application (No presentation recorded)
  • Washington DC, February 2016: Designing GRSciColl Version 2.0

    Washington, DC 2016

    Designing GRSciColl Version 2.0

    Text-text-text

  • Gainesville, May 2015: SciColl and GRSciColl, 30th Annual SPNHC Meeting

    Gainesville, FL 2015

    30th Annual SPNHC Meeting

    The Secretariat Office represented SciColl and the global registries (GRSciColl & GRBio) at the 30th Annual Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) meeting in Gainesville, Florida, USA.

    Type Speaker Title
    Presentation David Schindel Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (GRBio): Status Report and Future Directions
    Presentation Eileen Graham Scientific Collections: Engaging Across Disciplinary Boundaries to Combat Emerging Infectious Diseases
    Poster Adele Crane Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories: Function and Application
    Demonstration Adele Crane Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories: Function and Application
  • Washington DC, April 2015: SciColl/CBOL Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (GRBio) Community Workshop

    Washington, DC 2015

    SciColl/CBOL Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (GRBio) Community Workshop

    The Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (GRBio) was launched in 2013 as a merger of four online information resources about biodiversity repositories and their collections. The design of GRBio was developed as a consensus of features in these databases. Scientific Collections International (SciColl) and the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) hosted an NSF-supported workshop to review the successes and shortcomings of GRBio's design after 18 months of operation, and to gather community input for development of a new version of GRBio and GRSciColl.

    An archive of the event documents include the Workshop Report, an Agenda, a brief history of GRBio, the GRBio data structure, and a Participant List. The following presentations were provided by the participants:

    Session Topic Speaker
      Introduction to GRBio D. Schindel
    A Index Herbariorum B. Thiers
    A GBIF and ALA D. Hobern
    A WFCC P. Desmeth
    B Canadensys D. Shorthouse
    B CETAF A. Casino
    C iDigBio F. Michonneau
    C Specify A. Bentley
    D Ideas for GRBio R. Page
    D iDigBio G. Riccardi
    D ABCD P. Mergen
    D BISON S. Guala
    D ZooBank R. Pyle
    D Linking Data for Real R. Guralnick
  • Washington DC, October 2014: SciColl/US USDHHS Emerging Zoonotic and Human Diseases Workshop

    Washington, DC 2014

    SciColl/US USDHHS Emerging Zoonotic and Human Diseases Workshop

    (Read more about this initiative at the Emerging Diseases page...)

    Day 1's sessions were devoted to the presentation of case studies, afterwhich panelists from different disciplines were given the floor to describe how collections under their purview had or could have contributed to the case study.

    Topic Presenter Title
    Opening Remarks David Schindel
    Chair of the SciColl Executive Board, Smithsonian Institution
    Scientific Collections International and Zoonotic and Human Disease Research
    Keynote Address Stephen S. Morse
    Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health
    Windows into Emerging Infections
    Emergence & Detection Joseph A. Cook
    Museum of Southwestern Biology & University of New Mexico
    Emergence and Detection of Hantaviruses in Southwestern US and Beyond
    Characterization David Rollinson
    Natural History Museum London
    Value of Collections for Characterizing NTDs: The Case of Schistosomiasis in West Africa
    Mitigation & Intervention Judy Hewitt National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health Outbreak of a Novel Hemorrhagic Fever in Southern Africa and Virus Identification
    Prediction & Monitoring Gene G. Olinger, Jr National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health Prediction and Monitoring - Goal: Early Warning System, Data: Leading and Lagging

    Day 2’s sessions were entirely discussion-based with the goal of compiling new strategies for collaboration, communication and scientific collection use across disciplines. The results of these discussions are the basis of the meeting report.

    These topics included:

    • Examples of cross-disciplinary efforts that streamline the transfer of collections-derived data and information;
    • Data gaps and/or instances of disconnect between stakeholders and scientific collections;
    • Novel approaches to research, communication and cross-disciplinary integration of data provided by scientific collections; and
    • Changes in institutional, national, and international policies, procedures, and best practices that could enable these novel approaches by facilitating access to and sharing of samples from scientific collections.
  • Cardiff, 25 June 2014: Environmental Change and Natural History Collections Session, 29th Annual SPNHC Meeting

    Cardiff 2014

    Scientific Collections and Environmental Change: Breakout Session at SPNHC2014

    Scientific Collections International (SciColl) and The Natural History Museum London (NHM) hosted a session at the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) 2014 Annual Meeting. The main theme was the integration of scientific collections into environmental change research as natural history and other scientific collections offer relatively under-utilized or under-integrated sources of critical evidence about the past, and hold the potential for refining our understanding of how natural systems respond to environmental change.

    Schedule Presenter Title
    16:10 Ellinor Michel, NHM Unlocking Evidence: Scientific Collections and Environmental Change
    16:25 Mark Spencer, NHM Unlocking the Environmental Change Vault at the NHM - Orchids, Butterflies and Thyme!
    16:40 Judith Price, Canadian Museum of Nature DOAD, NODE and NANODe: integrating ostracod collections and databases for environmental change research applications
    16:55 Selina Brace, NHM Investigating the impact of late quaternary environmental changes using ancient DNA from collared lemming
    17:10 Matthew Collins, University of York Forgotten molecules, long lost records
    17:30 Eileen Graham, SciColl Discussing Evidence Panel Q & A: Scientific Collections and Environmental Change
  • Suva, July 2013: Connecting biodiversity collections in the Pacific, 12th Pacific Science Association Inter-Congress

    Suva 2013

    Connecting Biodiversity Collections in the Pacific:
    Digitization through DNA Barcoding and Informatics

    David E. Schindel, Consortium for the Barcode of Life, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

    Beth Mantle, Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Reference collections in museums, herbaria, botanical gardens, zoos and other repositories are critical infrastructure for research, education, regulation and legislation related to biodiversity. These collections provide documentation of research results as well as long-term changes in nature. Patterns of ecological, evolutionary and anthropogenic changes often go unseen and undocumented until samples from these collections material are analyzed and re-analyzed using the latest technology. In order to be accessible and effective, reference collections need to be digitized and their data and metadata made available to the research and education community, to policy-makers, and to the general public. Digitization in the most general sense is the association of an organism and its characteristics to a unique identifier that can be indexed for later searching and retrieval. It can take several forms, ranging from digital capture of label data (date and place of collection, taxonomic identification) to digital image capture and even DNA sequencing.

    This full day session included a half-day symposium of contributed presentations on DNA barcoding and a half-day instructional workshop on biodiversity informatics. The DNA barcoding symposium contributed toward development of a regional strategy for Oceania for construction and use of standardized barcode libraries. These libraries could serve basic research in ecology and evolution and/or applications such as the protection of endangered species and control of invasive alien species such as agricultural pests. The biodiversity informatics workshop showcased initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and digitization initiatives such as iDigBio and Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH). This session explored applications and network tools appropriate for the small and scattered countries and territories of Oceania. Participants learned the latest approaches to the digitization of natural history collections and explored how these could be applied to their collections. The session concluded with a round-table discussion on strategic development of, and support for, biodiversity informatics in the Oceania region.

    Wednesday

    14:20 - 14:40 Beth Mantle, Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
    Digitization for Management and Use of Entomological Collections: An Australian Perspective
    Video, PDF
    14:40 - 15:00 Shelley James, Bishop Museum
    Digitization Initiatives at the Bishop Museum: Baseline Data for Conservation in the Pacific
    Video, PDF
    15:00 - 15:20 Jim Croft, Australian National Botanic Gardens & Australian National Herbarium
    A 'Virtual Herbarium' of repatriated data for Papua New Guinea: a model for the southwest pacific?
    Video, PDF

    15:20-16:00 Afternoon Tea Break

    16:00 - 16:50 Gil Nelson, Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), Institute for Digital Information and Scientific Communication, Florida State University
    Trends in the Digitization of Biological Collections
    Video, PDF
    16:50 - 17:10 John LaSalle (via web), Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
    The Atlas of Living Australia and Digitization of Biological Collections
    Video, PDF
    17:10 - 17:30 David Schindel, Consortium for the Barcode of Life, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
    DNA Barcoding as a System of Specimen Digitization
    Video, PDF

    Thursday

    11:00-11:20 Bevan Weir (via web), Landcare Research
    Barcoding plant pathogens
    Video, PDF
    11:20-11:40 Mark Blacket (via web), Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Victoria, AUS
    DNA-based identifications reveal multiple introductions of the vegetable leafminer Liriomyza sativae (Diptera: Agromyzidae) into northern Australasia
    Video, PDF
    11:40-12:00 John Hooper (via web), Natural Environments Program, Queensland Museum & Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies, Griffith University
    Pumping Indo-west Pacific sponges through the taxonomic pipeline: The Sponge Barcoding & SpongeMaps Projects
    Video, PDF
    12:00-12:20 Esperanza Maribel, DLSU-Manila Herbarium
    DNA Barcoding of Philippine Orchids
    Video, PDF
  • Paris, April 2013: SciColl Interim Executive Board Meeting and Official Launch Ceremony

    Paris 2013

    Interim Executive Board Meeting

    Room MB S034, Marshall Building, OECD Conference Centre, Paris
    Scientific Collections International
    Tuesday, 16 April 2013
    2, rue André Pascal, 75016 Paris, France

    More pictures of the launch ceremony

    The second meeting of the SciColl Interim Executive Board occurred in April 2013 in Paris, France. The meeting focused on finalizing administrative concerns regarding the official formation of SciColl, presenting and discussing the research initiatives and other activities, and addressing Secretariat Office budget and function. The meeting concluded with a signing ceremony where the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by two National Member representatives and seven Institutional Member representatives. Upon these signatures, SciColl was established and the Interim Executive Board became the official SciColl Executive Board.

    9:30am:

    Welcome, introductions, review of plans for SciColl Launch Ceremony

    9:40am:

    Goals for Board meeting

    • SciColl membership and operating budget
    • Review of SciColl governance
    • Preliminary plans for Secretariat Office at Smithsonian Institution

    Presentation and discussion of preliminary plans for Research Initiatives

    10:00am:

    Food Security, United States

    10:30am:

    Zoonotic/Human Diseases, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz

    11:00am:

    Coffee/tea break

    11:30am:

    Global Change, Natural History Museum London

    12:00pm:

    Human Migration, Australia

    12:30pm:

      Priorities for Cross-Cutting Issues
    • Outreach to new types of collections
    • Registry of collections
    • Digitization of collections
    • Increasing accessibility and use of collections

    2:00pm:

      Discussion of Activities and Goals for Year 1:
    • Activities under four research initiatives
    • Formation and activities of cross-cutting working groups
    • Additional funding needed for initiatives and working groups
    • Outreach, documentation, and advocacy activities
    • Membership expansion
    • Possible Board meetings

    3:00pm:

      Discussion and decisions concerning allocation of operating budget
    • Subvention of workshops, other meetings
    • Staffing and/or contractors
    • Secretariat Office operations

    4:00pm:

    Adjourn to Global Science Forum meeting for SciColl launch ceremony

     

    SciColl Launch Ceremony Agenda

    4:30pm:

    Welcome by the Global Science Forum chairman and representatives from the French ministry of Higher Education and Research

    4:40pm:

    Introduction, history, objectives of SciColl (David Schindel)

    5:00pm:

    Presentation of ‘forecast’ of SciColl initiatives, activities and impact

    5:40pm:

    Signing of SciColl Memorandum of Understanding by representatives of

    6:00-7:00pm:

    Cocktail reception

  • Kuala Lumpur, June 2011: SciColl Workshop on Scientific Collections in the Pacific, 22nd Pacific Science Congress

    Kuala Lumpur 2011

    SciColl Symposium/Workshop on Scientific Collections in the Pacific

    22nd Pacific Science Congress, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 14-17 June 2011

    http://www.barcodeoflife.org/psa/collections.html

  • Melbourne, February 2011: Second International SciColl Conference

    Melbourne 2011

    Connecting Collections
    For a New Generation of Interdisciplinary Research

    Scientific Collection International (SciColl) Second Conference
    2-4 February, 2011, Melbourne Museum, Australia

    Melbourne SciColl Conference Agenda (pdf, 25kb)
    Melbourne SciColl Conference Report (pdf, 207kb)
    Collected presentations (Archive)

    Scientific Collections International (SciColl) held its second international conference on “Connecting Collections: A New Generation of Interdisciplinary Research” at the Melbourne Museum. The goals of the conference were to:

    • Explore four major interdisciplinary research challenges and how object-based collections can enable new and exciting research approaches;
    • Discuss the systemic enhancements needed to collections to support future interdisciplinary research, especially in the area of collection access, digitization, and interoperability; and
    • Hold SciColl’s first business meeting, to which the Interim Executive Board and representatives of other prospective SciColl member organizations are invited. 

  • Brussels, February 2010: First International SciColl Conference

    Brussels 2010

    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 PolicyOffice. 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
      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 

GRSciColl, February 2016

Designing GRSciColl Version 2.0

The Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl) is a community information resource about object-based scientific collections. We seek to bring together leaders in the use, improvement, and preservation of all types of scientific collections. GRSciColl is an expansion of the Global Registry of Biorepositories (GRBio) and a collaboration between Scientific Collections International (SciColl), the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL), and the U.S. Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (IWGSC). We intend to use this workshop to improve the registry and to develop next version of GRSciColl.

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

12:30pm Arrival and Registration: Meet in Constitution Ave. NW entrance lobby of NMNH
1:00pm Welcome and Review of Goals: David Schindel, Smithsonian Institution
1:30p Session A: Introduction to GRSciColl
Session Chair: Kit Matthew, Institute of Museum and Library Services
Overview of GRSciColl: David Schindel, Smithsonian Institution
  • Information content, controlled vocabularies, and search capabilities
  • Submission system for creating new records and editing old records
  • Community curation model and moderation workflow
Recap of GRBio Community Workshop: Andy Bentley, University Kansas/Specify/SPNHC
2:30pm Session B: Perspectives of Collections and Networks of CollectionsBrief overviews of the landscape of collections and collection networks (sizes and types of collections, types of parent institutions, modes of preservation, degrees of digitization, coordinating networks or other collaborative initiatives)
Session Chair: Jim Vaught, ISBER
Presentation (Geology): Denise Hills, Geological Survey of Alabama
Presentation (Geology): Piotr Szrek, Polish Geological Institute - National Research Institute
Presentation (Paleontology): Edward Davis, University of Oregon/NEOTOMA
3:00pm Coffee Break
3:30pm Session B (continued): Perspectives of Collections and Networks of Collections
Presentation (Anthropology): Alec Barker, University of Missouri
Presentation (Biomedicine): William Grizzle, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Presentation (Veterinary Sciences): Maria Serena Beato, Italian Diagnostic Virology Lab
Presentation (Veterinary Sciences): Marta Castelhano, Cornell Veterinary Biobank
Presentation (Prof. Associations): Bonnie Styles, AAM and Director Emeritus, Illinois State Museum
4:30pm Session C: Examples of Collections Databases and Data Networks
Status of collection informatics in several disciplines (e.g., data standards, widely used specimen/sample data management systems, database interoperability and aggregation to enable cross-institution searching)
Session Chair: Trevor Owens, Institute of Museum and Library Services
Presentation (STEPPE Paleontology Project): Dena Smith, University of Colorado Boulder
Presentation (ZIMS): Nate Flesness, International Species Information System
Presentation (IGSNs): Anders Noren, LacCore
5:30pm Preparations for Day 2 and Adjourn

Thursday, 25 February 2016

8:30am Registration and Breakfast
9:00am Session D: Use Cases for GRSciColl
Panelist presentations and open discussion of different use cases for GRSciColl, which will help to identify improvements to the registry and new features that will be needed.
Session Chair: Carolyn Sheffield, Smithsonian Institution – Biodiversity Heritage Library
Bonnie Styles, AAM and Director Emeritus, Illinois State Museum
Betty Adrian, U.S. Geological Survey
Marta Castelhano, Cornell Veterinary Biobank
Edward Davis, University of Oregon/NEOTOMA
Kristina Hill, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Yaffa Rubenstein, NIH/ISBER [TBC]
10:30am Coffee Break
11:00am Session E: Designing the Next Version of GRSciColl
This session will be devoted to a moderated discussion/brainstorming of suggestions for improvements and additions to GRSciColl to meet the requirements of Session D use cases.
Facilitator: David Schindel, Smithsonian Institution
  • Data fields, controlled vocabularies, and web services to add
  • Changes to user interface, including search capabilities
  • Unused features: what should be removed or discontinued?
  • Changes to moderation system
12:30pm Lunch & informal discussions about draft recommendations
1:30pm Session F: Social Initiatives for GRSciColl Version 2.0
This session will be devoted to a moderated discussion/brainstorming of comments on and discussions of the social dimensions of improving GRSciColl (e.g., populating it with content, curating content over time, connecting it with other relevant databases).
Facilitator: Eileen Graham, Scientific Collections International
  • Priorities for integrating with similar registries
  • Improving community curation of GRSciColl contents
  • Strategies to promote linkages with literature, other information resources
2:30pm Session G: Summary and Next Steps
Facilitator: Andy Bentley, University Kansas/Specify/SPNHC
  • Session D: Review of the use cases for the expanded GRSciColl
  • Session E: Review of recommendations for design of GRSciColl Version 2.0
  • Session F: Review of suggestions for improving the social dimensions of GRSciColl
  • Next steps
3:30pm Adjourn

SPNHC, Berlin 2016

31st Annual SPNHC Meeting & 2nd Annual GGBN Meeting

The Secretariat Office represented SciColl and GRSciColl at the 31st Annual Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) and the 2nd Annual Global Genome Biodiversity Network meetings, co-located in Berlin, Germany.

Type Speaker Title
Keynote- GGBN David Schindel Thematic, Demand-driven Sampling: Economics of Three Strategies
Presentation - GGBN Eileen Graham A Global Registry for Scientific Collections: Striking a balance between disciplinary detail and interdisciplinary discoverability
Presentation - SPNHC David Schindel Scientific Collections, Food Security and Emerging Infectious Diseases
Demonstration - DemoCamp Eileen Graham Global Registry of Scientific Collections: Function and Application (No presentation recorded)

USDA National Agriculture Library, Beltsville, MD, September 19-21 2016

Stressors and Drivers of Food Security: Evidence from Scientific Collections

(Read more about this initiative at the Food Security page...)

Day 1: Monday, 19 September 2016

12:00 Registration
13:00 Welcome and Introductions
13:45 Session 1: Keynotes
15:30 Coffee Break
16:00 Session 2: Collections Lightning Talks
Representatives from different scientific collections will give short presentations on their repositories and specimens
17:30 Adjourn

Day 2: Tuesday, 20 September 2016

Sessions 3-6 were devoted to presentations about different research challenges, followed by commentaries and discussion by panelists representing different collection domains. The focus was on how different collection types could contribute to research.

9:00 Session 3: Varieties of Food
9:30 Panel Discussion: Martin Kalfatovic (Moderator), Rod Page, Ari Novy, Patricia Mergen, Savi Natarajan
10:00 Q&A, group discussion
10:30 Coffee Break
11:00 Session 4: Biological Stressors and Aides.
11:30 Panel Discussion: Rosalind James (Moderator), Kevin McCluskey, Márcia Maués, Steve Young, Lisa Castlebury
12:00 Q&A, group discussion
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Session 5: Environmental Stressors and Benefits
14:00 Panel discussion: Faith Bartz Tarr (Moderator), Maxine Levin, Edna Makule, Muni Muniappan, John Dickie, Stephanie Yarwood
14:30 Q&A, group discussion
15:00 Coffee Break
15:30 Session 6: Feeding the 10 Billion.
16:30 Q&A, group discussion: Anne Marie Thro (Moderator)
17:00 Adjourn

Day 3: Wednesday, 21 September 2016

9:00 Session 7 Participants separated into break-out groups to discuss:
  • New strategies for increasing the use and impact of collections and associated databases for food security research
    • Grace Costantino
    • Rod Page
    • Kris Gremillion
    • Shannon Dominick
    • Savi Natarajan
    • Jill Demers
    • Muni Muniappan
    • Akwasi Asamoah
  • Case studies that exemplify cross-cutting and forward-thinking uses of collections and associated databases for food security research
    • Rosalind James
    • David Inouye
    • John Dickie
    • Daniel Debouck
    • Kristina Hill
    • Maxine Levin
    • George Ziobro
    • Zafar Handoo
  • Major recommendations for the research and collections communities, funding agencies, and/or networks (such as SciColl)
    • Cyndy Parr
    • Ari Novy
    • Kevin Hackett
    • Ann Marie Thro
    • Marcia Maues
    • Patricia Mergen
    • Martin Kalfatovic
    • Edna Makule
10:30 Coffee Break
11:00 Discussion & Next Steps: Cyndy Parr, Moderator
  1. Break-out group summaries: Reports from each break-out group will be compiled into one set of new strategies and case study examples.
  2. Recommendations: What new capabilities, best practices and collaborations should be set as new goals for collections and researchers?
  3. Priorities: Where should resources and efforts be focused in the near-term, mid-term, and long-term?
  4. Action items: What should we do in the near-term, mid-term, and long-term to pursue these goals?
12:30 Adjourn
13:00 Collections Tours
  • US National Aphid Collection & US National Mites Collection
  • NAL Library and Special Collections

Meeting Documents

Event photos

Press Release

Storify

Gainesville, FL 2015

30th Annual SPNHC Meeting

The Secretariat Office represented SciColl and the global registries (GRSciColl & GRBio) at the 30th Annual Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) meeting in Gainesville, Florida, USA.

Type Speaker Title
Presentation David Schindel Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (GRBio): Status Report and Future Directions
Presentation Eileen Graham Scientific Collections: Engaging Across Disciplinary Boundaries to Combat Emerging Infectious Diseases
Poster Adele Crane Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories: Function and Application
Demonstration Adele Crane Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories: Function and Application

Washington, DC 2015

SciColl/CBOL Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (GRBio) Community Workshop

The Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (GRBio) was launched in 2013 as a merger of four online information resources about biodiversity repositories and their collections. The design of GRBio was developed as a consensus of features in these databases. Scientific Collections International (SciColl) and the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) hosted an NSF-supported workshop to review the successes and shortcomings of GRBio's design after 18 months of operation, and to gather community input for development of a new version of GRBio and GRSciColl.

An archive of the event documents include the Workshop Report, an Agenda, a brief history of GRBio, the GRBio data structure, and a Participant List. The following presentations were provided by the participants:

Session Topic Speaker
  Introduction to GRBio D. Schindel
A Index Herbariorum B. Thiers
A GBIF and ALA D. Hobern
A WFCC P. Desmeth
B Canadensys D. Shorthouse
B CETAF A. Casino
C iDigBio F. Michonneau
C Specify A. Bentley
D Ideas for GRBio R. Page
D iDigBio G. Riccardi
D ABCD P. Mergen
D BISON S. Guala
D ZooBank R. Pyle
D Linking Data for Real R. Guralnick

Washington, DC 2014

SciColl/US USDHHS Emerging Zoonotic and Human Diseases Workshop

(Read more about this initiative at the Emerging Diseases page...)

Day 1's sessions were devoted to the presentation of case studies, afterwhich panelists from different disciplines were given the floor to describe how collections under their purview had or could have contributed to the case study.

Topic Presenter Title
Opening Remarks David Schindel
Chair of the SciColl Executive Board, Smithsonian Institution
Scientific Collections International and Zoonotic and Human Disease Research
Keynote Address Stephen S. Morse
Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health
Windows into Emerging Infections
Emergence & Detection Joseph A. Cook
Museum of Southwestern Biology & University of New Mexico
Emergence and Detection of Hantaviruses in Southwestern US and Beyond
Characterization David Rollinson
Natural History Museum London
Value of Collections for Characterizing NTDs: The Case of Schistosomiasis in West Africa
Mitigation & Intervention Judy Hewitt National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health Outbreak of a Novel Hemorrhagic Fever in Southern Africa and Virus Identification
Prediction & Monitoring Gene G. Olinger, Jr National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health Prediction and Monitoring - Goal: Early Warning System, Data: Leading and Lagging

Day 2’s sessions were entirely discussion-based with the goal of compiling new strategies for collaboration, communication and scientific collection use across disciplines. The results of these discussions are the basis of the meeting report.

These topics included:

  • Examples of cross-disciplinary efforts that streamline the transfer of collections-derived data and information;
  • Data gaps and/or instances of disconnect between stakeholders and scientific collections;
  • Novel approaches to research, communication and cross-disciplinary integration of data provided by scientific collections; and
  • Changes in institutional, national, and international policies, procedures, and best practices that could enable these novel approaches by facilitating access to and sharing of samples from scientific collections.

Cardiff 2014

Scientific Collections and Environmental Change: Breakout Session at SPNHC2014

Scientific Collections International (SciColl) and The Natural History Museum London (NHM) hosted a session at the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) 2014 Annual Meeting. The main theme was the integration of scientific collections into environmental change research as natural history and other scientific collections offer relatively under-utilized or under-integrated sources of critical evidence about the past, and hold the potential for refining our understanding of how natural systems respond to environmental change.

Schedule Presenter Title
16:10 Ellinor Michel, NHM Unlocking Evidence: Scientific Collections and Environmental Change
16:25 Mark Spencer, NHM Unlocking the Environmental Change Vault at the NHM - Orchids, Butterflies and Thyme!
16:40 Judith Price, Canadian Museum of Nature DOAD, NODE and NANODe: integrating ostracod collections and databases for environmental change research applications
16:55 Selina Brace, NHM Investigating the impact of late quaternary environmental changes using ancient DNA from collared lemming
17:10 Matthew Collins, University of York Forgotten molecules, long lost records
17:30 Eileen Graham, SciColl Discussing Evidence Panel Q & A: Scientific Collections and Environmental Change

Suva 2013

Connecting Biodiversity Collections in the Pacific: Digitization through DNA Barcoding and Informatics

David E. Schindel, Consortium for the Barcode of Life, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

Beth Mantle, Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Reference collections in museums, herbaria, botanical gardens, zoos and other repositories are critical infrastructure for research, education, regulation and legislation related to biodiversity. These collections provide documentation of research results as well as long-term changes in nature. Patterns of ecological, evolutionary and anthropogenic changes often go unseen and undocumented until samples from these collections material are analyzed and re-analyzed using the latest technology. In order to be accessible and effective, reference collections need to be digitized and their data and metadata made available to the research and education community, to policy-makers, and to the general public. Digitization in the most general sense is the association of an organism and its characteristics to a unique identifier that can be indexed for later searching and retrieval. It can take several forms, ranging from digital capture of label data (date and place of collection, taxonomic identification) to digital image capture and even DNA sequencing.

This full day session included a half-day symposium of contributed presentations on DNA barcoding and a half-day instructional workshop on biodiversity informatics. The DNA barcoding symposium contributed toward development of a regional strategy for Oceania for construction and use of standardized barcode libraries. These libraries could serve basic research in ecology and evolution and/or applications such as the protection of endangered species and control of invasive alien species such as agricultural pests. The biodiversity informatics workshop showcased initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and digitization initiatives such as iDigBio and Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH). This session explored applications and network tools appropriate for the small and scattered countries and territories of Oceania. Participants learned the latest approaches to the digitization of natural history collections and explored how these could be applied to their collections. The session concluded with a round-table discussion on strategic development of, and support for, biodiversity informatics in the Oceania region.

Wednesday

14:20 - 14:40 Beth Mantle, Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
Digitization for Management and Use of Entomological Collections: An Australian Perspective
Video, PDF
14:40 - 15:00 Shelley James, Bishop Museum
Digitization Initiatives at the Bishop Museum: Baseline Data for Conservation in the Pacific
Video, PDF
15:00 - 15:20 Jim Croft, Australian National Botanic Gardens & Australian National Herbarium
A 'Virtual Herbarium' of repatriated data for Papua New Guinea: a model for the southwest pacific?
Video, PDF

15:20-16:00 Afternoon Tea Break

16:00 - 16:50 Gil Nelson, Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), Institute for Digital Information and Scientific Communication, Florida State University
Trends in the Digitization of Biological Collections
Video, PDF
16:50 - 17:10 John LaSalle (via web), Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
The Atlas of Living Australia and Digitization of Biological Collections
Video, PDF
17:10 - 17:30 David Schindel, Consortium for the Barcode of Life, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
DNA Barcoding as a System of Specimen Digitization
Video, PDF

Thursday

11:00-11:20 Bevan Weir (via web), Landcare Research
Barcoding plant pathogens
Video, PDF
11:20-11:40 Mark Blacket (via web), Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Victoria, AUS
DNA-based identifications reveal multiple introductions of the vegetable leafminer Liriomyza sativae (Diptera: Agromyzidae) into northern Australasia
Video, PDF
11:40-12:00 John Hooper (via web), Natural Environments Program, Queensland Museum & Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies, Griffith University
Pumping Indo-west Pacific sponges through the taxonomic pipeline: The Sponge Barcoding & SpongeMaps Projects
Video, PDF
12:00-12:20 Esperanza Maribel, DLSU-Manila Herbarium
DNA Barcoding of Philippine Orchids
Video, PDF

Paris 2013

Interim Executive Board Meeting

Room MB S034, Marshall Building, OECD Conference Centre, Paris
Scientific Collections International
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
2, rue André Pascal, 75016 Paris, France

The second meeting of the SciColl Interim Executive Board occurred in April 2013 in Paris, France. The meeting focused on finalizing administrative concerns regarding the official formation of SciColl, presenting and discussing the research initiatives and other activities, and addressing Secretariat Office budget and function. The meeting concluded with a signing ceremony where the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by two National Member representatives and seven Institutional Member representatives. Upon these signatures, SciColl was established and the Interim Executive Board became the official SciColl Executive Board.

More pictures of the launch ceremony

9:30am:

Welcome, introductions, review of plans for SciColl Launch Ceremony

9:40am:

Goals for Board meeting

  • SciColl membership and operating budget
  • Review of SciColl governance
  • Preliminary plans for Secretariat Office at Smithsonian Institution

Presentation and discussion of preliminary plans for Research Initiatives

10:00am:

Food Security, United States

10:30am:

Zoonotic/Human Diseases, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz

11:00am:

Coffee/tea break

11:30am:

Global Change, Natural History Museum London

12:00pm:

Human Migration, Australia

12:30pm:

    Priorities for Cross-Cutting Issues
  • Outreach to new types of collections
  • Registry of collections
  • Digitization of collections
  • Increasing accessibility and use of collections

2:00pm:

    Discussion of Activities and Goals for Year 1:
  • Activities under four research initiatives
  • Formation and activities of cross-cutting working groups
  • Additional funding needed for initiatives and working groups
  • Outreach, documentation, and advocacy activities
  • Membership expansion
  • Possible Board meetings

3:00pm:

    Discussion and decisions concerning allocation of operating budget
  • Subvention of workshops, other meetings
  • Staffing and/or contractors
  • Secretariat Office operations

4:00pm:

Adjourn to Global Science Forum meeting for SciColl launch ceremony

 

SciColl Launch Ceremony Agenda

4:30pm:

Welcome by the Global Science Forum chairman and representatives from the French ministry of Higher Education and Research

4:40pm:

Introduction, history, objectives of SciColl (David Schindel)

5:00pm:

Presentation of ‘forecast’ of SciColl initiatives, activities and impact

5:40pm:

Signing of SciColl Memorandum of Understanding by representatives of

6:00-7:00pm:

Cocktail reception

Kuala Lumpur 2011

SciColl Symposium/Workshop on Scientific Collections in the Pacific

22nd Pacific Science Congress, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 14-17 June 2011

http://www.barcodeoflife.org/psa/collections.html

Melbourne 2011

Connecting Collections
For a New Generation of Interdisciplinary Research

Scientific Collection International (SciColl) Second Conference
2-4 February, 2011, Melbourne Museum, Australia

Melbourne SciColl Conference Agenda (pdf, 25kb)
Melbourne SciColl Conference Report (pdf, 207kb)
Collected presentations (Archive)

Scientific Collections International (SciColl) held its second international conference on “Connecting Collections: A New Generation of Interdisciplinary Research” at the Melbourne Museum. The goals of the conference were to:

  • Explore four major interdisciplinary research challenges and how object-based collections can enable new and exciting research approaches;
  • Discuss the systemic enhancements needed to collections to support future interdisciplinary research, especially in the area of collection access, digitization, and interoperability; and
  • Hold SciColl’s first business meeting, to which the Interim Executive Board and representatives of other prospective SciColl member organizations are invited. 

Brussels 2010

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
    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 

"

Scientific collections represent records of our past and investments in our future. They are also tools that can be harnessed to address challenges facing humankind.

"

John P. Holdren, Science Advisor to President Obama, March 20 2014