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.
On March 12, 2020, the NSC Alliance sent letters to key House and Senate leaders requesting 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. […]
The NSC Alliance provided testimony to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees regarding fiscal year (FY) 2021 funding for certain programs that curate natural history collections within the Department of the Interior and Smithsonian Institution. Scientific collections, and the collections professionals and scientists who make, care for, and study these resources, are a vital component […]
The White House released the President’s Budget Request for fiscal year (FY) 2021 on February 10, 2020. The budget once again proposes deep cuts to science programs. The $4.8 trillion budget framework calls for cuts to most federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Geological Survey […]
Indiana University (IU), iDigBio, and the Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA) will hold the 4th annual Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference on June 1-3, 2020 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. The theme for the conference is “Harnessing the Data Revolution and Amplifying Collections with Biodiversity Information Science.” Registration is now open and costs […]
The latest Index Herbariorum annual report, The World’s Herbaria 2019, is now available along with previous reports from 2016-2019 at http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ih/annual-report/. This report provides an annual snapshot of Index Herbariorum data that helps to track any changes in the number of herbaria and their specimens over time. “Participating institutions can use these data to put […]
Just prior to the expiration of the most recent stopgap funding resolution that kept the government running through December 20, 2019, both chambers of Congress passed two bundles of appropriations bills totaling approximately $1.4 trillion. The two compromise packages were signed into law by President Trump on December 20, 2019. As an indication of the […]
President Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate Dr. Sethuraman Panch Panchanathan to serve as the next director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). If confirmed, Dr. Panchanathan would be the agency’s 15th director. He would assume the office following Senate confirmation. He would replace Dr. France Cordova at the end of her […]
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 […]
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) Committee on Assistance to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) on Taxonomic Studies of the Red Wolf is calling for research applications to clarify the taxonomic identity of wild canid populations in southwestern Louisiana and other geographic areas where the red wolf (Canis rufus) was […]
The joint meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) and the International Council of Museums Committee for Museums and Collections of Natural History (ICOM NATHIST) will take place from the June 7-13, 2020 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. The theme for the meeting is “The Role of Natural History Collections in […]