Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections: Thematic Collections Network/NSF 15-576: Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline

Date: 

Tuesday, September 5, 2017, 11:30pm

Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections: Thematic Collections Network/NSF 15-576
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: September 5, 2017
Sponsor Deadline: October 13, 2017
Award Amount: 
Budgets for TCN proposals should reflect the scope of work proposed and should not exceed four years in duration. The budget justification for the TCN should include an estimate of the cost per specimen for digitization.

This program seeks to enhance and expand the national resource of digital data documenting existing vouchered biological and paleontological collections and to advance scientific knowledge by improving access to digitized information (including images) residing in vouchered scientific collections across the United States. The information associated with various collections of organisms, such as geographic, paleogeographic and stratigraphic distribution, environmental habitat data, phenology, information about associated organisms, collector field notes, and tissues and molecular data extracted from the specimens, is a rich resource providing the baseline from which to further biodiversity research and provide critical information about existing gaps in our knowledge of life on earth.

Thematic Collections Network (TCN) proposals will be submissions for two-to-four year awards to digitize existing specimens based on a particular research theme. This research theme may be a grand challenge for biodiversity, a part of a grand challenge, or another important research theme requiring information from existing collections. Specimens to be digitized should be of critical importance to the research theme and the criteria for the specimen assessment should be indicated in the proposal. The collaborating institutions will conduct the actual digitization of the specimens (including imaging and mobilization of the data). The length of award and size of award will depend upon the number and size of the collections to be digitized. This solicitation encourages projects of various sizes and duration, although the expectation is that all projects will be collaborative efforts among several institutions.