| Abstract | In recent years, the scientific community has developed a national strategy for a Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance (NIBA) to establish a framework for leveraging the wealth of resources represented by the nation’s biocollections through digitization of specimens and associated metadata, creating a massive, distributed tool for addressing grand challenges across a wide range of scientific endeavor. Significant progress has been made toward the implementation of NIBA, but much more work remains. In 2014, the National Science Foundation funded a Research Coordination Network (RCN) grant to support efforts to foster the continued engagement with and development of a sustainable, networked community of practice. The NIBA RCN is working with the community to evaluate current and future needs. This talk will summarize work and findings thus far, as well as solicit input on future activities. |
