The Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSC Alliance) has submitted testimony to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, requesting Congress to provide the National Science Foundation with at least $11 billion in FY 2023. The testimony highlights the importance and role of natural history collections in improving public well-being and national economic security.
“Natural science collections advance scientific research and education, and that informs actions to improve public health, agricultural productivity, natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and American economic innovation,” notes NSC Alliance. “Current research involving natural science collections also contributes to the development of new cyberinfrastructure, data visualization tools, and improved data management practices.
The testimony underscores the role of collections in advancing the knowledge needed to address current global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemics. “The COVID-19 crisis has illustrated how inextricably linked humans are to the natural world. Biological collections, their extended data, and the experts that build and study them are globally important for understanding where viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 exist in nature or when they cross from their current hosts to humans.”
Read the testimony submitted to the House. An identical version was submitted to the Senate.