As the year wraps up and we head into the holiday season, we invite you to take a look at the NSC Alliance’s accomplishments in 2022. We engaged in a number of efforts to elevate the profile of natural history collections with policymakers, researchers, and the general public. A few highlights are presented below:
- Secured passage of the historic CHIPS and Science Act, which not only authorized critical new investments in our nation’s science and technology enterprise, but also formalized support for U.S. biological collections by supporting key recommendations from the National Academies report on biological collections. NSC Alliance worked with the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) to ensure that the collections-related provisions were included in the final bill.
- Provided input on proposed revisions to the rules governing the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The letter expressed strong support for the mission of NAGPRA, and urged that any finalized rule account for staffing and resource limitations of museums and tribal partners and provide clear guidelines to enable timely and efficient compliance.
- Endorsed the One Health Security Act, a new legislative initiative from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and joined 17 other scientific organizations in urging the Senator to exapnd the bill to include biodiversity infrastructure, including natural history collections, as a critical component of our national research infrastructure for pathogen prediction, surveillance, and mitigation.
- Assisted the U.S. Department of State, the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (IWGSC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) in raising awareness about their effort to save and protect Ukrainian archival, cultural, and scientific collections.
2022 Year in Review