Welcome to SYNTHESYS+, a pan-European collections infrastructure project and the fourth iteration of the SYNTHESYS programme, funded by the European Commission. SYNTHESYS+ will commence on 1 February 2019 and run until 31 January 2023.
SYNTHESYS+ is the final iteration of the programme, which builds upon previous SYNTHESYS projects which ran from February 2004 – July 2009; September 2009 – August 2013; and September 2013 - August 2017. All iterations of the SYNTHESYS programme have developed collections infrastructure with international partners, via discrete work packages coordinated under deliverables of Access, Networking, and Joint Research Activities.
SYNTHESYS+ will lay the foundations for the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCO), a massive scientific infrastructure project, which will see 115 European Museums from 21 Countries position their collections at the centre of data-driven scientific excellence and innovation in environmental research, climate change, food security, one health and the bioeconomy.
Click here for more information on DiSSCO.
SYNTHESYS aims to produce an accessible, integrated European resource for research users in the natural sciences. SYNTHESYS will create a shared, high quality approach to the management, preservation, and access to leading European natural history collections.
A core element in SYNTHESYS is to provide funded researcher visits (Access) to the 390,000,000 specimens housed by SYNTHESYS institutions. In particular, the 4,049,800 type specimens.
Alongside the Access, a Joint Research Activity (JRA) aims to improve the quality of and increase access to digital collections and data within natural history institutions by developing virtual collections.
Network Activities (NA) will provide enhanced quality and quantity of online collections information to virtual Users and will implement best practice benchmarks in collections care to raise standards and improve accessibility to collections for all physical Users.
