SYNTHESYS Network Activities

The Networking element of SYNTHESYS aims to raise scientists’ awareness of best practice in handling and sampling collections by offering improved training and workshop opportunities, and guidelines for the care, storage and conservation of collections. It will create an integrated European resource; bringing together the biological and geological collections held by major natural history museums and other institutions.

SYNTHESYS, through its Networking Activities (NAs) will ensure that our collections and knowledge are shared and used to the maximum benefit of all; it will allow the partnership institutions to set the highest possible standards in collection care and take on the responsibility for ensuring their long-term availability.

The NAs will broaden and deepen the relationship between all natural history facilities in Europe. Directors of all CETAF (Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities) facilities will be encouraged to use the knowledge, best practice and standards created in these NAs. Co-operation from natural history institutions in states outside the members of the Union will be sought after, to ensure that best practise and standards for collection management and access are developed on a global basis.

If you would like more information about any of the Network Activities please contact synthesys@nhm.ac.uk

Network Activity B - Complementarity

NA B aims to establish a network to optimise the co-ordination and improve user access to collections and expertise at a European level. This activity will maximise the limited resources and avoid duplication of effort at a national level. It will result in co-ordination of development of collections where the acquisition of new materials is focused on agreed areas of strength, co-ordination of human resources with respect to recruitment policies to cover required expertise on different taxonomic groups on the European, regional and national scale, and an overview of the taxonomic literature in Europe. This activity has four distinct objectives:

Objectives

• Description of the relative strengths in the collections, facilities & expertise

• Description of taxonomic knowledge, activity and dissemination

• Assessment of current policies and planning

• Agreement on taxonomic institution development

Network Activity C – Collections Standards

NA C will establish a European Collections Standards Network (ECSN) that will encourage the active participation of all European countries in the long-term preservation, targeted development and wide use of their collections and inherent information. Partner institutions will identify the best collections and the most appropriate techniques used across Europe, as well as those collections currently using poor standards of collection care and management.

The ECSN aims to:

• Improve conservation, management and ethical standards for the maintenance of natural science materials and their associated archives

• Ensure the extended preservation of European collections using preservative and remedial strategies and ensure the long term security of collections

• Increase and improve collection management systems

• Improve access and marketing of collections

• Use collections to support the active participation by all European countries in their varied contributions to geological, life and environmental sciences.

Network Activity D – Developing and Maintaining Databases

NA D will engage and aid the active participation by all European Countries in the delivery of information systems about their taxonomic collections. This system will bring the information held by SYNTHESYS partners to all the user sectors that depend on organism related information for their research and/or decision making purposes.

NA D will build on and actively incorporate results of initiatives such as BioCASE and ENHSIN, which have laid the base for a European collection information service, and aims to take the research work from these initiatives as the core of a practical, sustainable, Europe-wide information network for users of taxonomic information.

There will also be interaction with global biodiversity informatics infrastructure, represented by GBIF, and related European projects, such as ENBI.

Objectives

• Extend the amount and increase the technical quality and availability of networked data resources

• Pool, extend, and synchronise semantic definitions, standard data, and data standards

• User interfaces

NA E – Developing storage and Retrieval systems for New Type Collections

NA E will develop storage facilities and develop retrieval systems for new types of collections, e.g. tissue banks and DNA samples. The aim is to make collections directly accessible and relevant not only for research in the institutions that own them, but for the scientific user community as a whole. Pending negotiations, links will be made with recognised collections of voucher specimens, in order to maintain their integrity and long-term integrity.

NA E will establish appropriate standards fro collection, curation, preservation and databasing new types of taxonomic specimens and associated genetic products.

Objectives

• Improve data standards for new collections

• Improve storage methods for and usage of new collections

• Define types of new collections

• Form links to existing repositories of new collections

• Define propriety and ethical issues and establish code of practice

NA F – Implementations of Novel Physical analytical methods in collections

NA F will explore non-destructive and/or non-invasive physical analytical techniques that can be applied to the study of specimens housed in natural history collections.

NA F will explore the following:

• CT exploration

• MR exploration

• ESEM

• The potential of a digital database of virtual specimens

• Virtual preservation of specifically important single specimens (e.g.holotypes)