About

The Sampling Nature Research Coordination Network (RCN) is a project supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF 2129268) to establish a network of stakeholders in the research community that enhances the Natural History Value Chain for Sustainability Science. The project brings together an interdisciplinary group of investigators from multiple NSF directorates, federal agencies, Indigenous groups, museums, publishers, and infrastructure. The Sampling Nature RCN aims to build a collaborative research community around an accessible and integrated corpus of material samples and associated data, communicating the importance of material samples in science, society, and sustainability.

Project Goals

• Establish a diverse interdisciplinary community of researchers who want to reuse material sample data for sustainability science.
• Clarify incentives and overcome barriers (technological, social, legal, cultural, financial) to equitable and just sharing and reuse of samples and sample-based data, and adopting common resources (metadata, identifier resolution, workflows, and standards) for samples.
• Formalize the process of gathering requirements, proposing standards and best practices, and promoting adoption of shared cyberinfrastructure for the physical and digital assets arising from material samples of the natural world.
• Raise awareness, within the scientific community and the general public of the role that material samples play in society, the long-term value of material samples, and the importance of responsible sample and data collection and sharing.