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Mission and goals

Mission

What is the mission of the DiSSCo Spanish Node?

To mobilize, gather, harmonize and provide access to scientific collections and their associated data, either physical access (consultation of specimens in the collections’ own facilities) or virtual access (providing digital, textual or image information).

Provide high quality data and services, at the scale and in the appropriated format to satisfy the needs of users (scientific community and society) to respond to the major environmental and social challenges related to the loss of diversity and climate change.

Goals

Our goals include:
  • To constitute a network of excellence in the field of natural science collections, promoting professional exchanges, knowledge transfer and citizen science in view of its integration into DiSSCo as a research infrastructure at European level;
  • Collect information on natural science collections held or acquired by network members;
  • Develop services, procedures and methods to digitize, manage and study collections of natural objects;
  • Join efforts to develop competitive and coordinated projects;
  • Establish consensual processes and protocols for physical and virtual access to collections;
  • Strengthen the scientific and technical capabilities of these infrastructures and promote their international leadership;
La revista Science aboga por una red mundial de colecciones de Historia Natural
  • Raise awareness among all administrations in charge of science, environment and culture (national, regional and local) of the importance of natural science collections as a scientific and social strategic resource;
  • Prevent orphan collections from being lost due to abandonment and damage, especially in times of crisis.