Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ICEDIG (Innovation and consolidation for large scale digitisation of natural heritage)
Teaser
The justificationModern science requires digital access to data. European Natural History collections account for 55% of the collections globally, holding more than 1 billion objects, which represent 80% of the world’s bio- and geo-diversity. Only around 10% of these objects...
Summary
The justification
Modern science requires digital access to data. European Natural History collections account for 55% of the collections globally, holding more than 1 billion objects, which represent 80% of the world’s bio- and geo-diversity. Only around 10% of these objects have been digitally catalogued and 1-2% imaged, leaving their information underused. This challenge is being tackled by the new Research Infrastructure (RI) initiative, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo), which has been accepted to ESFRI roadmap (http://roadmap2018.esfri.eu, p 167). DiSSCo will unify access to European collection data in a harmonised and integrated manner. It will enable critical new insights from integrated digital data to address some of the world\'s greatest challenges, such as biodiversity loss and impacts of climate change. However, new research and technological innovation will be required to solve the challenges of efficiently digitising and accessing the collections. ICEDIG project will design all the technical, financial, policy and governance aspects for developing and operating DiSSCo.
The effectiveness
Digitalisation of society affects all areas of human activity, and science is at the forefront of this development. Digital science means a transformation of the nature of science and innovation. Emphasis on shared data has led to the concept of “Open Scienceâ€. Natural science collections are an integral part of the global natural and cultural capital. They include 2-3 billions of animal, plant, fossil, rock, mineral, and meteorite specimens. Data derived from these collections underpin countless innovations, including publications and official reports used to support legislative and regulatory processes relating to health, food, security, sustainability and environmental change. Natural science collections have always been open for all scientists and form the hard core of biodiversity science that studies the existence of life on earth.
The current situation concerning the availability of data, hinders modern science, as research requires access to data digitally to address some of the biggest challenges of our time such as understanding the impact of global change and biodiversity loss, and the effect of climate change on ecosystems. Biodiversity loss and extinctions, and the associated loss of ecosystem function, are leading to a situation where a substantial part of the world’s biodiversity and critical ecosystem services are lost even before we understand their value. We need to accelerate the discovery of species, which can only be done by accelerating scientific cooperation, data sharing, and more effective use of biological collections. DiSSCo RI will unify access to the European collections and facilitate innovations that streamline digitisation of physical collections.
The solutions provided by ICEDIG
The general objective of ICEDIG project is to lay the groundwork for DiSSCo RI, which can enable digitisation of physical collections in an industrial fashion and scale while being also cost-effective. Firstly, by supporting the technological innovations that will be needed to efficiently digitise one and a half billion collection objects in a foreseeable time, such as the next 30 years, and secondly to consolidate the organisation that needs to perform this task. When this has been achieved, the natural science community will be a fully enabled player in digital society, and the most fundamental scientific data on the diversity of life on earth will be freely and openly available for all.
Work performed
The work performed during the first 18 months of the ICEDIG project, has been following systematically the work plan and only minor changes were required in regards to schedule of some outputs due to interlinkages of numerous tasks and unpredictable staffing issues. All public Deliverables can be found at https://www.icedig.eu/content/deliverables. Behind these, there are numerous Milestone reports based on research, investigation, surveys, meetings and innovative pilots, among others. In the Periodic report, the work performance is clarified in detail for each Work Package to task-level.
Final results
Progress beyond the state of the art of ICEDIG
Since the ICEDIG project is short (27 M) and intense and since it has been built with a logic where all outputs of Milestones and Deliverables will directly support the upcoming tasks, the progress beyond the state of the art, cannot be evaluated reliably at this stage of the project (Periodic report). The progress has been steady and all tasks have been achieved with success. In the final report, ICEDIG partners will prepare a well-considered and documented evaluation of its achievements beyond the state of the art.
Expected results of ICEDIG project
All the major results are listed in ICEDIG.eu website (https://www.icedig.eu/content/deliverables). They are chiefly documents, reports, conclusions of conducted surveys and research work etc. All of them offer central solutions in supporting the efficient building of DiSSCo RI. ICEDIG outputs and outcomes provide all relevant designs for DiSSCo to be taken into consideration when the actual building work of DiSSCo starts.
Expected impacts of ICEDIG project
ICEDIG has remarkable impacts on society at large but mainly they will become real through its contribution to Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo).
The strategic and funding needs of the scientific collections community have been arranged in the three pillars of DiSSCo:
• Digitising and mobilising content from collections through open access, comprehensive tools and innovative services
• Harmonising data policies, processes and workflows
• Maximising the use of expertise, enhancing skills and engaging communities
The first pillar requires innovation, new technological solutions, new services, and careful integration of services from many connecting RIs. ICEDIG will tackle these questions. The resulting design documents will make it clear for the funding bodies that scientific collections in Europe need a serious, permanent, common RI that will make them full-fledged players in the information society. This is simply a key pillar in the entire process of digitalising biodiversity science, which is currently missing.
The impact of DiSCCo as a RI and its relation to ICEDIG is described in detail in ICEDIG project documentation: Annex 1 - Description Of Action (part B) at section 2 IMPACT.
ICEDIG socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications so far
As described above in the previous sections, at this stage also the evaluation of ICEDIG socio-economic impact and societal implications is difficult. The major impacts and implications could be listed as:
• Increased collaboration among the natural history collection holding institutions in Pan-European context but also worldwide;
• Engagement of science sector and other sector experts, who have been contributing to numerous ICEDIG tasks;
• Increased understanding of the importance of natural history collections for the society at large through numerous presentations, representations in various events and via communication platforms such as websites and twitter;
• Engagement of enthusiastic volunteers by inviting them to participate and contribute to ICEDIG surveys;
• Scientific sector working closely together with business sector partners and subcontractors to achieve common goals.
Website & more info
More info: https://www.icedig.eu/.