Natural Science Collections Alliance
Our members are part of an international community of museums, botanical gardens, herbariums, universities and other institutions that house natural science collections and utilize them in research, exhibitions, academic and informal science education, and outreach activities.
Over the past year several exciting conversations about the possibilities of digital representations of the billions of specimens currently held in the world’s natural history collections. Two concepts the Digital Specimen proposed by the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) in Europe and the Extended Specimen emerging from the Biological Collections Network (BCoN) in the […]
Recent articles published in the journal Bioscience call attention to the importance of natural history collections (NHC) in solving problems and the need to identify strategies for bolstering the nation’s biodiversity-enabled and biodiversity-related science. In an Editorial published in the November 2020 issue, former NSCA Executive Director Robert Gropp writes about the recognition of the […]
Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, US science leaders and others have expressed frustration with the lack of an informed and coherent federal response, a sentiment that echoes objections to the handling of other pressing issues, such as climate change. NSC Alliance has endorsed a Viewpoint article, penned by past presidents of the […]
Date: January 14, 2021 Time: 2:00-4:00 pm Eastern Time (includes a 15 minute break) Location: Online via Zoom We invite the Biological Collections community at-large to join the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA), and Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) for a joint discussion with the […]
The Natural Science Collections Alliance was among 170 science and research stakeholders to write to congressional leadership urging swift action to complete work on the fiscal year (FY) 2021 appropriations bills with increases for federal science agencies and to provide emergency supplemental funding for research relief in the wake of COVID-19. The groups argue, in […]
The Natural Science Collections Alliance has joined 15 other scientific organizations in thanking House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Representative Gerald Connolly (D-VA), and Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) for introducing the Saving the Civil Service Act (H.R. 8687) to reverse the October 21, 2020 Executive Order on Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service. The […]
On October 19, 2020, the NSC Alliance reiterated its request to key House and Senate leaders that any economic measures crafted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic address the financial harm being felt by natural history museums, botanical gardens, and other scientific societies and research organizations, which are an integral part of the nation’s bioeconomy. […]
A federal judge at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled against the Trump Administration’s effort to narrow the reach of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918. A 2017 legal opinion by the Department of the Interior solicitor’s office concluded that incidental bird take resulting from an […]
A new special collection of natural history collection related articles from BioScience highlights some of the exciting new ways scientists and educators are mobilizing and using biodiversity data from natural history collections. The collection entitled, Natural History Collections: Advancing the Frontiers of Science, is available at https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/pages/natural-history-collections.
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have introduced bipartisan legislation to provide emergency relief appropriations for federal science agencies to support the research community during the ongoing public health crisis. On June 24, 2020, the Research Investment to Spark the Economy (RISE) Act (H.R. 7308) was introduced by Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO), Fred Upton (R-MI), […]