Funding Opportunities for Scientific Collections at NSF
2021-10-04 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York)
Join us for a webinar with program directors from the National Science Foundation (NSF) about structural changes to collections-related funding opportunities at the agency.
Event Partners:

American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS)
Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA)
Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN)
Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC)
United States Culture Collection Network (USCCN)

Moderator:

Jyotsna Pandey, AIBS, NSC Alliance, and BCoN

Speakers from NSF:

Reed Beaman, Program Director, Division of Biological Infrastructure
Peter McCartney, Program Director, Division of Biological Infrastructure
Roland Roberts, Program Director, Division of Biological Infrastructure

Discussion:
The National Science Foundation plays an important role in protecting, supporting, and expanding access to our nation’s scientific collections, which include preserved specimens in natural history museums and herbaria; fossilized specimens; living collections in zoos, aquaria, and botanical gardens; tissues, DNA and stock collections; and media collections. NSF supports research that uses existing collections as well as studies that gather new specimens. Importantly, it also provides critical support for national biological research infrastructure that houses biodiversity collections as well as digitization initiatives through the Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC), Thematic Collections Networks (TCN), and Partner to Existing Networks (PEN) programs.
The collections community and stakeholders, including collection and data managers, curators, Sponsored Research Officers (SROs), and other administrators are invited to join us for a virtual learning session that will explore recent structural changes to NSF programs that support collections and how these might impact the community. There will also be a discussion of new opportunities that currently exist or may be available in the near future. The program will start with a presentation from NSF program directors responsible for collections-related programs at the agency followed by an opportunity for the community to ask questions.
View the recording.

Kick-off Webinar & Discussion on the Need for a Specimen Management Plan Requirement
2023-02-07 14:00 - 15:00
Please join representatives from the Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) and the U.S. Culture Collection Network (USCCN) for a joint webinar discussion on the need for a Specimen Management Plan requirement in research proposals that generate living or preserved specimens. Recommended by the National Academies’ report on biological collections in 2020, this requirement is now supported by the CHIPS and Science Act. Join us for a discussion about the elements of a specimen management plan and its benefits to various stakeholder communities.
Location: Online via Zoom (The program will be recorded.)
Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET
Hosted by: American Institute of Biological Sciences & Natural Science Collections Alliance
In advance of this program, we encourage you to review the following reading materials:

BCoN & USCCN. November 2022. Specimen Management Plan Draft Proposal.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Biological Collections: Ensuring Critical Research and Education for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25592.

We will be soliciting community input on the draft proposal linked above after the webinar. Please stay tuned for more information and register for the webinar to receive updates.

View Recording

Webinar: BIOFAIR Data Network Listening Sessions - A Summary
2024-11-13 15:00 - 16:00
The Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), in collaboration with the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), held a series of domain-focused virtual listening sessions over the summer to engage an expansive set of stakeholders toward Building an Integrated, Open, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (BIOFAIR) Data Network. The sessions convened stakeholders from the federal agency, genetic and genomic data, One Health, ecological data, climate and environmental data, and biodiversity informatics communities to explore the initiation of a comprehensive biological and environmental data network through the creation of a collaborative and accessible partnership. Brief summaries from each of these sessions are available on the links above.
The final summary report focusing on the areas of unity across the six virtual Listening Sessions is now available. The steering committee will be holding a webinar on Wednesday, November 13, 2024 at 3:00 PM ET to discuss this report and to gather additional feedback to inform preparations for the upcoming interdisciplinary workshop (February 2025) to develop recommendations and create a roadmap towards a FAIR, open, and integrated data network.
Intended audience:

Collections and curatorial professionals across natural history disciplines
Biodiversity researchers, students, and individuals working on or interested in issues of data sharing, management, and integration

View presentation slides.

View Recording

BIOFAIR Data Network: Open Mic for Data!
2025-10-30 11:00 - 12:30
The BIOFAIR Team invites you to participate in an online community forum regarding the integration of FAIR biological and environmental data.
Date: October 30, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM-12:30 PM Eastern Time (10:00-11:30 AM Central/8:00-9:30 AM Pacific)
Location: Zoom (Link will be shared upon registration)
View the presentation slides.
View the recording.
Over the past 18 months, the National Science Foundation-funded BIOFAIR Data Network project (Building an Integrated, Open, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable Data Network) has engaged more than 200 stakeholders to explore the development of an integrated network of genomic, ecological, climatological, geological, biodiversity, behavioral, human health, and other data. Together, we identified five major focus areas that are key elements to the development of an integrated network of biological and environmental data, as seen in the figure below. (Check out our final report, publication and podcast.)

The upcoming Open Mic for Data! is the culminating event of the BIOFAIR Data Network project. We would like to conclude the project by hearing from you. We welcome informal “lightning” presentations (1–5 minutes long) about data integration work that you are doing, actively planning, or contemplating relating to any of these areas. Projects stymied by a lack of integrated data are also of interest. Our goal here is not to recap work that has already been completed, but rather to provide a glimpse into work that is still in a formative stage that could benefit from or contribute to a nascent collaborative effort to create a BIOFAIR Data Network.
If you are interested in trying out new ideas about the technical or social aspects of data integration, or potential uses of integrated data, this could be a great opportunity to obtain feedback or connect with potential collaborators!
Register at the link below to attend. Submissions have now closed for lightning talks.
REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED

The program will feature the following lightning talks:

Macrostrat as an integration point for biological and geochemical data – Shanan Peters, University of Wisconsin-Madison

A taxonomic name is the key to the knowledge about a specimen – Donat Agosti, Plazi

The use of Wikidata for recording identifiers for Collecting Expedition for Open Linked Data – Robert Cubey, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Community science can bring together natural history collections and historical survey data – Randy Singer, Augusta University

Integrating ancient environmental DNA with the Neotoma Paleoecology Database – Jack Williams, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Exploring Wikibase as a platform for the Sherwin Carlquist Extended Specimen Network – Jason Best, Botanical Research Institute of Texas

Eco-evolutionary analyses of Global South biodiversity need better data – Israel Borokini, Montana State University, Bozeman

FAIRy: Upstream, Cross-Repo Submission-Readiness Checks (GEO/Zenodo) – Jennifer Slotnick, Datadabra

ZooMu Network Data Updates – Amanda Mazza, Duke University Lemur Center

Building the culture of data stewardship: an ocean data case study – Rachael Blake, Intertidal Agency
