Belgium

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) is a multidisciplinary institution focusing on natural and cultural heritage, knowledge transfer, and research. It holds one of the largest world collections on Central Africa, offering unique reference material. The majority of specimens originate from a relatively poorly studied megadiversity belt in the equatorial region of Africa. The Biology and Geology departments contain around 10 million animal specimens, 60,000 wood specimens, 16,000 minerals, 300,000 rocks, and 21,500 fossils. Extensive archives include field notes, books, maps and aerial photography containing valuable complementary information.

Researchers carry out studies in the natural and urban environments, including historical socio-economic aspects. The main facilities are a DNA lab for pre-processing sequencing, genotyping, a wood anatomy laboratory, photo stacking and 3D digitisation systems, a scanning electron Microscope, a geological thin section laboratory, an extensive cartography library, remote sensing equipment and advanced spectroscopy facilities.

Meise Botanic Garden (MeiseBG): Besides acting as coordinator for Flanders and being the relay for FWB and RW, the institution contributes with their knowhow in both physical and digital collection management. Meise BG hosts about 4 million preserved collections items among which about 3.5 million herbarium sheets and 500 000 fungi collections including lichens. The outdoor (92 ha) and indoor living collections comprise over 25000 accessions including important crop wild relatives from coffee and bananas with high economical importance. The seed bank of the Garden conserves more than 6600 accessions notably of endangered Belgian flora, the endemics of the Copper Hills in Katanga, and a unique collections of wild beans and bananas. There are close to 10 000 DNA extracts stored in relation to our molecular activities. MeiseBG is busy mass digitizing its entire preserved collection of herbarium sheets which progress can be consulted here. The public can contribute to mobilise more data about our collections via our crowdsourcing platform. MeiseBG staff is expert in Biodiversity Information Standards and active member of TDWG. 

The Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) is the Flemish research and knowledge centre for nature and its sustainable management and use. INBO conducts research and supplies knowledge to all those who prepare or make the policies or are interested in them as a stakeholder. Through its scientific research, INBO supports all agencies dealing with open space in the Flemish government, as well as in organisations involved in nature conservation, forestry, agriculture, hunting and fishery. INBO publishes its results as open data and provides data for international reporting. It participates in (inter)national research networks such as LTER, ALTER-Net, LifeWatch. INBO will notably act as liaison between biodiversity field and collection data. Furthermore INBO houses a collection of trees and shrubs from Belgium and a soil collection that will enrich the Earth Science collections within DiSSCo. Staff members of INBO are very skilled in Biodiversity Informatics and part of the Belgium Biodiversity Platform acting as the countries GBIF node.

The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) promotes accumulation of marine knowledge and excellence in marine research in Flanders. The marine research areas are the ocean and seas, the coast and the tidal systems. The target groups for knowledge accumulation are the marine research community as well as educational institutions, the general public, policymakers and the industry (within the scope of the blue economy). Several ongoing activities at VLIZ are highly relevant to DiSSCo. VLIZ as member of the LifeWatch ESFRI is both the regional contributor with activities related to the observatories and data archaeology, and responsible for the development of the Species Information Backbone. This Backbone contains a lot more info then purely taxonomic information, and gives access to a range of species information, including species traits, distribution, habitat information, links and direct access to literature and deep-links with genetic databases such as e.g. GBIF, GenBank and BoLD. Interlinking such data with the data of collections will broaden research applications and potential of the collections.

Linked to the LifeWatch Marine Observatory, VLIZ is developing several collections.  Planktonic and benthic samples and specific filters for DNA sequencing are being stored as part of a sample library for later reference and re-use. Selected samples are digitized using imaging devices (Zooscan, Flowcam, etc.) and annotated with crucial metadata and environmental information. In addition, VLIZ is compiling a digital specimen collection for all species present in the Belgian part of the North Sea.

Both at the national and international level, VLIZ will ensure synergies between activities of DiSSCo and LifeWatch infrastructures.

Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp (KDMA): The KMDA was established in 1843 as an association and has four brands under its wing: Antwerp ZOO, Planckendael, Serpentarium and the Koningin Elisabethzaal. In addition, the KMDA manages the De Zegge nature reserve in Geel. With more than 2 million visitors a year, the KMDA is the biggest actor amongst Belgium’s tourist attractions; it also plays a leading role on the world stage in terms of scientific research and conservation. In DiSSCo the Society will play an important role in terms of zoological living collections. They harbour also an arboretum and host genetic, tissues and cell collections. Furthermore they play an important role as link with the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA). Their experience with the data management systems used in this domain will be very valuable for the implementation of DiSSCo. 

Université libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels, ULB) is a French-speaking private research university in Brussels. Its foundation goes back to 1834. Currently there are about 3600 researchers and 2000 PhD students active in the ULB. It currently participates in DiSSCo with is herbarium which houses 250,000 specimens, including about 600 type specimens. The core of the collection is about vascular plants from Central Africa, notably from Katanga with the flora from metal rich soils, the flora of Atlantic equatorial Africa. Highlights are about 6000 Orchids from tropical Africa including tissue samples for DNA extractions for about 5000 specimens. The University also plays an important role in capacity building with for example the ERASMUS Mundus Master in Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystems TROPIMUNDO. Besides the herbarium, the ULB also harbors other scientific collections. In the framework of DiSSCo a detailed inventory will be made with prioritisation for conservation, digitisation, publication and re-use.

The University of Namur (UNamur), founded in 1831 in Namur, is a Jesuit, Catholic private university in the French Community of Belgium. Both teaching and research are carried out. The main campus is located at the heart of the city of Namur, the capital of Wallonia. The university employs more than 1000 researchers with about 6500 students a year. UNamur currently participates in DiSSCo with its herbarium of about 70 000 specimens of Phanerogams, Pteridophytes and Bryophytes. It is a small but very valuable, historical herbarium and the most complete and well-preserved collection of Brendel botanical models are among the highlights. Since 2018 the collection is hosted within the Library of the University where it has become accessible not only for research but also for outreach and capacity building. UNamur hosts also other important scientific collections, which will be inventorised and addressed in the framework of DiSSCo.

The University of Liège’s cultural patrimony is extraordinary, as it includes both artistic and scientific treasures (from all disciplines). These collections have been built up over the institution’s 200-year history and keep expanding in the light of on-going research. The Cultural and Museum Centre, together with its members and partners, is charged with presenting this cultural heritage to the public, as well as with its proper cataloguing and long-term conservation for future generations of scholars, students, and visitors. This heritage is composed of various collections distributed over the different sites of the University. Although composed of miscellaneous objects, it forms an assemblage whose common thread is the development of the creation of information. The collections themselves unearth the long history of knowledge – its roamings, its successes, its meanderings. The objectives of the Cultural and Museum Centre thus include exposing how science lives, explaining and illustrating scientific methods, and showing science’s peculiarities as well as its relationships with society and other forms of creation and expression that sometimes go unnoticed. In short, the Centre aims to reveal the borders and porosities of science. In pursuing this objective, it fosters debate and exchange on the major societal challenges of our day, and in so doing, places itself at the heart of the University’s civic mission.