DiSSCo Flanders: Enhancing access to Flemish collections through integration with DiSSCo

DiSSCo is a research infrastructure (RI) that manages both physical and digital European natural science collections. It aims to unify these assets digitally across countries, ensuring data compliance with FAIR principles through digital specimens representing FAIR digital objects. By bringing together 175 institutions from 23 countries, DiSSCo transforms fragmented resources into a cohesive knowledge base. It provides services for global research access and support, enhancing physical and digital collection accessibility. By unlocking collections and integrating data, DiSSCo is accelerating research and supporting novel research opportunities. DiSSCo Flanders plays a pivotal role in the DiSSCo RI by including Flander’s rich and diverse collections and ensuring their proper preservation. We will leverage our expertise and infrastructure to enhance digital collection management through innovative techniques such as data integration and AI and ensure the linkage of both the physical specimens and their digital representatives with other research infrastructures. Additionally, we will foster citizen involvement via the development of a cutting-edge crowdsourcing platform, provide services to tackle legal and ethical challenges surrounding collection management and empower the public to actively interact with the collections. These efforts collectively will strengthen the services offered by the European DiSSCo RI and upscale the usage and visibility of Flemish collections and expertise worldwide.