2026 Digital Data: Sustainability & Collaboration in a Time of Uncertainty - Day 3, Extended Session

Sustainability and collaboration in a time of uncertainty Extended Session including Speakers & Discussion Abstract: Over the past several decades, geo- and biodiversity sciences have been transformed by large-scale efforts to digitize and mobilize natural history collections' data, producing new infrastructures, tools, standards, and interconnected communities. As many initiatives move beyond initial funding, the community faces ongoing challenges in sustaining social, physical, and digital infrastructure, maintaining and aligning data and software, supporting training, and retaining expertise. The initial presentation frames sustainability as a shared, system-wide challenge across the biodiversity data landscape, affecting collections, aggregators, digitization initiatives, software platforms, repositories, and end users. Drawing on recent discussions within BCoN, IPDES and the broader community, it emphasizes the need for a more coordinated and integrative approach. Positioning natural history collections as critical infrastructure within a distributed ecosystem, we highlight the importance of aligning social, physical, and digital components. Isolated efforts can leave systems vulnerable, while coordinated strategies can reduce unnecessary duplication, leverage shared resources, and improve resilience. The presentation also explores cross-domain connections and using the Digital Extended Specimen as a framework to support an impactful and sustainable future for the biodiversity collections and data landscape. Following this, presentations from GBIF, DiSCCo, and iSamples/ESIL, discuss internal sustainability discussions and their perspectives on shared governance, infrastructure, and sustainability as below. This will be followed by a Q&A and discussion period. This is the first in a series of discussions that will continue during similar sessions at the SPNHC 2026 meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, and the TWDG 2026 meeting, in Oslo, Norway in September in the hopes of engaging the community in these ideas and providing a roadmap for future work. Presentations: Sustainability and collaboration in a time of uncertainty - Andy Bentley (Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas) Unifying Natural Heritage for a Resilient Future - Wouter Addink, Technical Director (DiSSCo) GBIF after 25 years - Joe Miller (GBIF) Working toward infrastructural resilience: efforts in the US-based Earth sciences data community - Andrea Thomer (University of Arizona, College of Information Science)