Partnership

The consortium funded and no-funded partners federate all federal and non-federal components of the Belgian branch of DiSSCo. Several partners (RBINS, Meise BG, CETAF) collaborate in the setup of the DiSSCo proposal and associated projects since the beginning of the initiative.
RBINS contributed in DiSSCo Prepare, under the governance pillar, to the selection of the legal entity model (ERIC) and the drafting of the Statutes. RBINS collaborated also with CETAF (Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities) on the development of the Specialization tool, a prototype allowing to collect information related to the core activities of DiSSCo existing within and to be developed by the institutions and National Nodes. The prototype must now (2023) be implemented at the global scale, and the data must be entered by more than 100 institutions.

RMCA and RBINS collaborate since a decade in the digitization of their collections developing and sharing an Open-Source Collection Management System (DaRWIN), digitization staff and equipment. The 2 FSIs share one of the largest digitization setups in the DiSSCo community (See DIGIT Key) and have a huge experience in the high-resolution digitization of the natural history specimens.

RBINS and RMCA collaborates with Meise BG in the framework of the naturalheritage project aiming to setup a technical platform to be use as a technical hub for DiSSCO. They are also collaborating in the CANAHIST project aiming to develop a specific sharing platform for the collections from central Africa. Meise BG is the coordinator of the DiSSCo Flanders project and already developed a powerful platform for the crowdsourcing (DOEDAT). 

The Biodiversity Platform has a considerable experience in the data validation and publishing of data related to the natural sciences and to biodiversity. The Belgian Biodiversity Platform provides services to the Belgian scientific community engaged in biodiversity research and to policymakers as well as to practitioners. It provides services related to the mobilization, publication, access and use of biodiversity data in an open and free manner. As Belgian node of GBIF, it will contribute to the definition of the PID of the (sub)collections of natural history.

The ULiège and the insectarium HEXAPODA is the third largest entomological collection in Belgium. The ULiège which is not yet a DiSSCo member could contribute significatively to the Be.DiSSCo-FED project and benefit of the developed tools to manage the collection and contribute to the DiSSCo infrastructure. 

The UMons manages a smaller collection of entomology but is involved with the Africa Museum in a FedTwin profile. UMons, not yet a DiSSCo member, is therefore an important partner which could also contribute to the Be.DiSSCo-FED project and to the DiSSCo infrastructure.

LIST OF MEMBERS/PROFILES IN THE FOLLOW-UP COMMITTEE