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.
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), […]
On July 6, 2020, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a new guidance that would have forced international students to leave the U.S. if they did not participate in in-person instruction during the fall 2020 semester. The ICE guidance modified temporary exemptions issued in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those provisions […]
Two articles published in the July 2020 issue of BioScience — an Editorial led by NSC Alliance Treasurer Jennifer Zaspel and a Viewpoint led by Past-President Joe Cook — are calling for increased coordination and new strategies for integrating biodiversity collections into efforts to tackle pathogen discovery and emerging infectious diseases, including zoonoses. In the […]
Recognizing the rapid changes happening within museum communities and the efforts being made throughout the community to adapt to these changes, iDigBio is organizing a new webinar series, entitled, Adapting to COVID-19: Resources for Natural History Collections in a New Virtual World. The webinar series aims to help provide insight into how different groups and […]
On July 10, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a notice ordering hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and send all COVID-19 patient data to a centralized database effective July 15, 2020. The directive raised concerns about transparency and public access to data for researchers as […]
The Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) is working to help the scientific and natural history collections/museum community understand how COVID-19 related economic disruptions are affecting research, education, specimen and data management and care, institutional administration, and other factors. Results of a community survey of collections professionals were shared recently. BCoN continues to track impacts to natural […]
The NSC Alliance has joined with other organizations representing museums, zoos, and aquaria to endorse comments from the National Council of Nonprofits to the Small Business Administration. The comments were in response to the SBA’s Interim Final Rules on Business Loan Program Temporary Changes; Paycheck Protection Program. The museum groups wrote: As you implement the […]
The coronavirus pandemic has shown that biology and the economy are tightly linked. A new Washington Watch column in BioScience, Policy for Bioeconomic Growth, discusses the policy implications of growing and safeguarding the bioeconomy. Below is an excerpt. “Policymakers around the world increasingly look to biology to strengthen economies and promote national security and well-being. […]
The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSC Alliance), and Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) surveyed individuals affiliated with US biodiversity science collections to better understand the effects of COVID-19 related disruptions and closures on biodiversity research and education collections, and the people […]
On March 31, 2020, the NSC Alliance joined with the American Institute of Biological Sciences and Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections to remind federal science policy officials that biological collections can be used to better understand important societal problems, such as zoonoses like SARS-CoV-2. The groups highlighted the Extended Specimen Network (ESN) […]