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 European Union has funded a new two year project to lay the groundwork for a biodiversity knowledge management system. Pro-iBiosphere will address interoperability issues, identify data gaps, and plan an efficient system to manage biodiversity information. The pilot project will focus on data at partner institutions. The initiative will consider how to make the […]
Applications are now being accepted for the 2013 AIBS Emerging Public Policy Leadership Award. This award recognizes graduate students in the biological sciences who have demonstrated initiative and leadership in science policy. Recipients receive first-hand experience at the interface of science and public policy. Winners receive: A trip to Washington, DC, to participate in the […]
The American Society of Parasitologists (ASP) has written to government agricultural leaders regarding the state of the U.S. National Parasite Collection. The letter calls for action “to avoid further erosion of the museum’s collections, to modernize the holdings and make them more accessible to users through appropriate modern interfaces, to deal with a backlog of […]
NSC Alliance President Larry Page participated in a panel discussion on biodiversity collections at the CODATA meeting in Taipei, Taiwan, on 30 October 2012. Discussion centered on the value of collections data to understanding and solving current and emerging policy problems, including natural resource management and loss of biodiversity. The discussion was organized by Melissa […]
After weeks of negotiations, the United Nations 11th meeting of the conference of parties (COP 11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to increase funding to halt global loss of biodiversity. This pledge will help nations to meet internationally agreed upon biodiversity targets set by the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 that was developed […]
Election day is rapidly approaching. Participate in democracy by voting on Tuesday, November 6th. The next Congress and President must address many significant issues. Â Many of these will affect every American and, potentially, the level of support for scientific research for years to come. Make your voice heard, vote on November 6th. Contact your state […]
The Museum Assessment Program is seeking applications for its 2013 program. The program helps small and mid-sized museums strengthen operations, plan for the future, and meet national standards through self-study and a site visit from a peer reviewer. The program is funded by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and throughout its […]
The September 2012 issue of the journal BioScience includes an article entitled “Doing Natural History.â€Â The article, which appears in the journal’s Biology in History column, explores how natural history research changed during the twentieth century. The article is available with a subscription at http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2012.62.9.8.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $26.4 million for 14 research grants that will expand our understanding of biodiversity. “This year’s awardees will study subjects as diverse as the biota of the Amazon and its environment, how nutrient input drives biodiversity in China’s extremely oxygen-deprived–or eutrophic–Lake Taihu, the components of tree biodiversity, and the […]
The National Science Foundation is accepting proposals for the Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections program. This initiative seeks to enhance and expand the national resource of digital data documenting existing vouchered biological and paleontological collections and to advance scientific knowledge by improving access to digitized information residing in vouchered scientific collections across the United States. […]