Unifying Natural Heritage for a Resilient Future
Wouter Addink · Sustaining the Geo- and Biodiversity Data Ecosystem: Standards-Driven Approaches to Long-Term Resilience
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The short versionDiSSCo's ERIC model and FAIR digital specimen objects are intended to make Europe's specimen data resilient beyond short-term project funding.
What this was about
Wouter Addink used Shackleton's Endurance expedition as a parable of resilience (acting immediately and protecting the most precious assets) before presenting DiSSCo. He explained that only about 10% of Europe's estimated 1.5 billion specimens are digitised, and that DiSSCo aims to industrialise digitisation and create one FAIR, machine-actionable European virtual collection built around the Digital Extended Specimen as a citable FAIR digital object with a DOI. He argued that the ERIC legal model, with member-state financial and governance commitments, frees data from project-cycle dependency.
Why it matters. Specimens provide evidence for biodiversity loss, climate change and health research, and a long-term legal and funding structure is presented as the answer to data loss when project funding ends.
In the room
- Resilience means taking immediate action and focusing on preserving the most precious assets, illustrated by Shackleton's expedition.
- Specimens are evidence for biodiversity loss, climate adaptation and pathogen/health research.
- Only about 10% of an estimated 1.5 billion European specimens are digitised.
- The DiSSCo digital specimen is a FAIR digital object with a DOI, containing catalogue data and links to derived and related data.
- The ERIC model provides long-term governance and financial commitments from member states, beyond project-cycle dependency.
- DiSSCo has submitted its step-two ERIC application, with six founding countries, aiming to launch next year; over 400 institutions from 23 countries are involved.
Notable moments
Transcript
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