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.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has directed all federal agencies to plan for the management of their scientific collections. A memo issued by OSTP Director John Holdren on October 6 outlines the implementation of several recommendations made by the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections in their 2009 report. Within […]
A new blog has been created to assist the biological collections community to discuss and share ideas about the National Science Foundation’s solicitation for “Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (ADBC).” The blog aims to “encourage the community to begin to communicate openly about the ADBC solicitation including questions, ideas, intentions, and other related issues.” The […]
AIM-UP! (Advancing the Integration of Museums into Undergraduate Programs) is a recently funded NSF Research Coordination Network focused on new ways of incorporating the extensive archives and cyberinfrastructure of natural history museums into undergraduate education. There are five primary themes: Complex Biotic Associations Across Space and Time, Geographic Variation, Evolutionary Dynamics of Genomes, Biotic Response […]
Investing in basic research, improving science education, and supporting graduate fellowships — these are central elements for a vibrant scientific workforce. However, many programs supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and other federal agencies are at risk because of the pending expiration of the America COMPETES Act. First […]
NSCA would like to thank all those who took the time to fill out the survey on collections and the economy. The survey is now closed. A report outlining survey results is forthcoming and will be posted to the NSCA website.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has announced that it has entered into a contract with the White Oak Institute and the American Association of Museums (AAM) to develop standard data definitions in collaboration with the museum field. This work is part of the agency’s museum data collection project, Museums Count. “We are […]
New research published in the Journal of Ecology demonstrates one of the many values of natural history collections. Researchers in the United Kingdom have shown that preserved plant specimens can be used in place of field observations to determine the impacts of climate change on phenology. The team compared specimens of early spider orchids (Ophrys […]
On September 15, 2010, the Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSC Alliance) joined 13 other scientific organizations to express concern “with the issue of intellectual property rights and ownership of research results that arise in the aftermath of incidents caused by industry, most recently, the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.†In a letter […]
On September 16, 2010, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the Ecological Society of America (ESA) issued an open letter urging the Russian government to preserve the Pavlovsk Experiment Station in Saint Petersburg. The facility is home to more than 5,000 distinct varieties of fruit trees and plans, most of which are extinct […]
Dr. Cora Marrett, Acting Director of the National Science Foundation, recently distributed a Dear Colleague letter announcing that NSF has initiated the process for selecting a new Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources. The text of her letter follows: We are initiating a national search for the National Science Foundation’s Assistant Director for Education […]