On January 16, 2020, Robert Gropp briefed the members of the Federal Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections about the Extended Specimen Network report and other recent Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) activities and accomplishments. The NSC Alliance is an active leader of the BCoN effort and played an important role in shaping the Extended Specimen report, a version of which was published in the January issue of BioScience (https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz140).
The briefing was well received and timely. The Interagency Working Group is in the process of developing a vision for federal collections.
NSC Alliance members and representatives of BCoN also participated in the December 2019 AIBS Council Meeting, Beyond Specimens. A report from this meeting, which will include a number of community-identified priorities is forthcoming. Thus, collections should not lack for attention in the spring of 2020. In addition to the BCoN report, forthcoming AIBS report, and deliberations of the Federal Interagency Working Group, the National Academies is expected to release a report on living and non-living collections in February.