2026 Digital Data: Plenary Session - Day 3, DiSSCo UK in a Global Landscape

DiSSCo UK in a Global Landscape DiSSCo UK is a ten-year national research infrastructure that will transform access to the UK’s world-leading natural science collections, creating a sovereign digital information asset connected to a global research ecosystem. Delivered by UKRI in partnership with the Natural History Museum and a nationwide consortium of collections-holding institutions, the programme will digitise tens of millions of specimens and associated data, opening collections that are currently fragmented, physically distributed and underused, and making them available for international research, innovation, policy and public benefit. This presentation will move beyond the business case for DiSSCo UK to describe the delivery plan: how the programme will build sector-wide capability through coordinated digitisation hubs, shared training, common standards, and central infrastructure for the secure storage, publication and access of FAIR data. A central theme will be the role of the Natural History Museum as a “hub of hubs”, drawing on more than a decade of large-scale digitisation experience, its stewardship of around 60% of the UK’s natural science collections, and its leadership in international initiatives including DiSSCo Europe and GBIF-aligned data mobilisation. The presentation will also introduce the DiSSCo UK Catalysis Centre, which will use AI, robotics, knowledge graphs and applied data services to accelerate digitisation and turn collections data into actionable insight for science, policy and industry. It will show how UK institutions can be involved in, prepare for, and benefit from DiSSCo UK, while contributing to a globally connected infrastructure for understanding biodiversity, environmental change and planetary resilience. Speaker: Vincent Smith, Head of Digital, Data & Informatics (Natural History Museum, London, UK)