Welcome to the June 2023 edition of our ALA newsletter.
Biological collections play an important role in understanding trends in biodiversity life sciences. With advances in genomics, imaging, artificial intelligence and machine learning, more information can be obtained from physical-biological specimens than has ever been possible before.
The ALA has been proud to play a key role in ensuring data emerging from Australia’s collections is made findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable globally. Recently, the ALA was pleased to partner with our key stakeholders across the museums, collections and herbaria sectors to host a national workshop in Canberra. The workshop – ‘Towards a national approach to biological collections’ – brought together experts to explore current capabilities, emerging research drivers and key components that are required to support biological collections in Australia. Having our partners from across the nation meet together highlighted the maturity and cohesiveness of our sector, as well as the opportunities for international collaboration and improving data connections to deliver greater scientific benefit. We look forward to continuing collaborations to further advance work in this space at a national level. This will be pivotal in informing future priorities and co-investment pathways aligning with the recently released National Research Infrastructure Roadmap.
In addition to a focus on collections for the rest of the year, we look forward to further engaging with the broader scientific community through multiple conferences such as the Ecological Society of Australia event in Darwin and the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) event in Hobart in the coming months. You’ll also find an exciting line-up of virtual events to support National Science Week in August which I encourage you to register for participation.
We hope you enjoy our June newsletter.