Récolnat

DiSSCo

Towards a European infrastructure: the distributed system of scientific collections (DiSSCo)

The

Distributed System of Scientific Collections

(DiSSCo) is a new world-class Research Infrastructure (RI) for Natural Science Collections. The DiSSCo RI aims to create a new business model for one European collection that digitally unifies all European natural science assets under common access, curation, policies and practices that ensure that all the data is easily Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR principles)

DiSSCo represents the largest ever formal agreement between natural history museums, botanic gardens and collection-holding universities in the world.

This European research infrastructure is the result of the common ambition of more than 170 institutions from 23 countries to enhance access - both physical and virtual - to naturalist collections and to develop a range of services that allow their data to be used. In a broader sense, DiSSCo aims to exploit the full potential of collections by bringing them together virtually, making them physically and digitally open, accessible, interoperable and usable (FAIR principles) for all possible forms of research and innovation. DiSSCo has been on the roadmap of the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) since September 2018 and is due to become operational by 2026; it is led by Naturalis (Leiden) as a whole and by the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN) on behalf of the Récolnat infrastructure for France. It is intended to take the legal form of an ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium), which gives it certain advantages, including the implementation of its own governance specifically designed for its activity

In a more operational approach, DiSSCo plans to deploy its activity according to the following four strategic pillars:

digitisation of collections

access to them

training and skills development

e-services