Distributed System of Scientific Collections - Preparatory Phase Project

Project Information

DiSSCo Prepare

Grant agreement ID: 871043

DOI

10.3030/871043

Project closed

EC signature date 6 February 2020

Start date 1 February 2020

End date 28 February 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 4 868 518,37

EU contribution

€ 3 999 383,01

Coordinated by

STICHTING NATURALIS BIODIVERSITY CENTER
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DiSSCo Prepare (Distributed System of Scientific Collections - Preparatory Phase Project)

Reporting period: 2021-08-01 to 2023-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

European Natural Science Collections (NSC) are essential resources to enable scientists to discover and document the world’s bio- and geo-diversity; its past, present, and future, and its influence on global challenges in the environment and society.
Data derived from NSCs and new technologies underpin countless discoveries and innovations, including inventions and products critical to our economy and the societal challenges, such as climate change. However, the geographical fragmentation of the collections impacts negatively the access to specimens, tools, and expertise. DiSSCo comes in to guarantee collections-derived information and expertise are at the epicentre of the development of a robust, quality ensured, and fit-for-purpose knowledge base for bio- and geo-diversity. To achieve that, DiSSCo works for the digital unification of all European natural science assets under common curation and FAIR access policies and practices. As such, DiSSCo enables the transformation of a fragmented landscape of the crucial natural science collections into an integrated knowledge base that provides interconnected hard evidence on the natural world.
DiSSCo PREPARE is the main instrument for DiSSCo to become a pan-European Research Infrastructure ready for that challenge.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

DiSSCo PREPARE aims to ensure DiSSCo RI is ready to embark on its implementation phase, based on clear guidelines and across five main areas of work: data, technology, financial, organisational, and scientific. Therefore, the work is structured to respond to that objective as follows:

1. Understanding the user needs and the socioeconomic impact of research using NSC data (WP1)
2. Working to ensure that the DiSSCo community has the appropriate skills and competencies necessary for the optimal operation of DiSSCo (WP2)
3. Providing support and training to DiSSCo user communities across domains (WP2, WP6)
4. Ensuring the digital transformation is possible across NSC(WP3)
5. Understanding the business framework of DiSSCo and its governance structure (WP4; WP7)
6. Identifying, developing, and providing services and best practices for DiSSCo (WP5; WP6)
7. Building the DiSSCo technical architecture, guaranteeing interoperability, and promoting work on FAIR Digital Objects (FAIR-DO)
8. Developing DiSSCo’s Digital Specimen architecture in a highly dynamic international environment
9. Making sure all DiSSCo stakeholders are well informed and have meaningful ways to participate in the decision making-processes (WP8; WP9)
10. Fostering co-creation and cooperation with international, European and regional stakeholders (WP6; WP8)
11. Advocating for DiSSCo and enhancing the capacity of the DiSSCo community across Europe (WP8)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

DiSSCo PREPARE listed 12 major expected impacts:

1. Improving technologies capacity and effectiveness of the infrastructure: DiSSCo develops a basic model for the prioritisation of digitisation of objects held in Natural Science Collections (NSCs). The work is complemented with digitisation workflows supporting the standardisation and efficacy of digitisation processes. Work on the service infrastructure enables the development of prototypes as part of the Digital Specimen Architecture (DOA). The development of the DiSSCo Knowledgebase facilitates the understanding of DiSSCo’s technical building blocks and is a trusted source for other e-services. The work on digital competency supports DiSSCo institutions to self-assess and improve their digital capacity, while the secondment procedures will support a spread of digital capabilities across partner institutions.

2. Keeping abreast with ever-changing scientific needs: DiSSCo works on a service development framework focused on users in NSCs and research applications to guarantee the update on scientific needs.

3. Building on existing investments and leveraging cross-infrastructures collaboration: DiSSCo PREPARE work is based on the knowledge and experience established in former or current EU-funded projects. On top of that, communication with existing, well-established RIs, facilitates the understanding of what is really needed.
The interaction between implementation at the national level and coordination by the central coordination hub is an essential starting point for the DiSSCo RI.

4. Paving the way for a fully FAIR infrastructure: DiSSCo Knowledgebase provides curated access to different information and link to other resources and e-services in the DiSSCo universe. DiSSCO’s key design decisions and best practices rest on three essential pillars: the FAIR data principles, intrinsic outcomes of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), and the concept of FAIR Digital Objects (FAIR-DO) substantiated as Digital Extended Specimen (DES). DiSSCo is a partner in the EU-funded project ENVRI FAIR WP11.

5. Better EOSC integration: DiSSCo’s technical architecture is closely connected in particular to EOSC’s Persistent Identifier approach, and Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure (AAI) approach.

6. Early involvement of national-level RI funders: DiSSCo works on legal, policy, financial and organisational aspects, pay special attention to the support from the National-level RI stakeholders.

7. Establishing clear rules of participation: DiSSCo PREPARE developed an extensive engagement programme to prepare all DiSSCo partners for the technical and organizational transitions to ensure that all institutions achieve a sufficient level of technical alignment and interoperability with DiSSCo’s core services.

8. A simple and convincing financial and business model: DiSSCo's business model will bring the methodology and tools to evaluate service costs and overall operational costs.

9. Gender balance and geographic inclusiveness: DiSSCo RI works towards a better gender and geographical inclusiveness.

10. Intellectual Property (IP) and ethical issues: DiSSCo PREPARE developed a handout for licensing of software developed in the DiSSCo context.

11. Capacity enhancement and Human Resources: DiSSCo PREPARE works to ensure that the staff acquire the skills and competencies needed to enable them to optimally use DiSSCo when addressing digitisation, exploitation, and enrichment of digital collections.

12. International coordination: DiSSCo PREPARE activities imply international coordination for the development of the work in all the five readiness dimensions of the project. Regular communication and collaboration with GBIF, TDWG, RDA, EOSC, iDigBio, CDIWG, BcoN, ALA, and existing ERICs.

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