Collections

Natural science collections are a treasure trove of data that are pivotal in finding solutions from and for nature; from conservation, health, minimising the degradation of natural capital and finding new sources of critical minerals, to addressing the challenges of food security, water scarcity and the impact of natural disasters.

The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is a pan-European Research Infrastructure (RI) that aims to digitally unify natural science collections - some 1.5 billion specimens - from 175 museums, botanical gardens, and universities across 23 countries in a distributed infrastructure that makes these collections physically and digitally open and accessible for all forms of research and innovation. DiSSCo’s preparatory phase ran from January 2020 to February 2023. This collection of articles highlights the major outputs of the DiSSCo Prepare project, which address five aspects of implementation readiness: the technical, scientific, data, organisational and financial readiness levels.

Natural science collections are a treasure trove of data that are pivotal in finding solutions from and for nature; from conservation, health, minimising the degradation of natural capital and finding new sources of critical minerals, to addressing the challenges of food security, water scarcity and ...

This collection hosts outputs from the FP7-funded EU project Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON). The project proposes an innovative approach in terms of integration of biodiversity information systems from on-ground to remote sensing data, for addressing policy and information needs in a timely and customized way.

This collection hosts outputs from the FP7-funded EU project Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON). The project proposes an innovative approach in terms of integration of biodiversity information systems from on-ground to remote sensing data, for addressing policy and infor ...

This research project was an Open Data pilot based on case studies with seven IDRC grantees who developed and implemented open data management and sharing plans. The case studies examined the scale of legal, ethical and technical challenges that limited the sharing of data from IDRC projects including issues of:

* Privacy, personally identifiable information and protection of human subject
* Protection of intellectual property generated from projects or potential for financial risks for projects or institutions
* Challenges in the local legal environment, including ownership of data
* Ethical issues in releasing or sharing of indigenous and community knowledge, and the relationship between project participants and investigators particularly in the context of historical expropriation of resources
* Local and global issues of capacity and expertise in the management and sharing of data

The project ran over (15) months, commencing December 2015 and ending in February 2017. The project involved a literature review and series of interviews on funder data sharing policies, the seven case studies including data management plans and implementation, and a final summary report. The results of the project aim to refine guidelines for the implementation of development research funders’ open research data policies and data policies more generally.  

This research project was an Open Data pilot based on case studies with seven IDRC grantees who developed and implemented open data management and sharing plans. The case studies examined the scale of legal, ethical and technical challenges that limited the sharing of data from IDRC projects includi ...