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Movalli, Paola et al., The chemical industry is the leading sector in the EU in terms of added value. However, contaminants pose a major threat and significant costs to the environment and human health. While EU legislation and international conventions aim to reduce this threat, regulators struggle to assess and manage chemical risks, given the vast number of substances involved and the lack of data on exposure and hazards. The European Green Deal sets a ‘zero pollution ambition for a toxic free environment’ by 2050 and the EU Chemicals Strategy calls for increased monitoring of chemicals in the environment. Monitoring of contaminants in biota can, inter alia: provide regulators with early warning of bioaccumulation problems with chemicals of emerging concern; trigger risk assessment of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances; enable risk assessment of chemical mixtures in biota; enable risk assessment of mixtures; and enable assessment of the effectiveness of risk management measures and of chemicals regulations overall. A number of these purposes are to be addressed under the recently launched European Partnership for Risk Assessment of Chemicals (PARC). Apex predators are of particular value to biomonitoring. Securing sufficient data at European scale implies large-scale, long-term monitoring and a steady supply of large numbers of fresh apex predator tissue samples from across Europe. Natural science collections are very well-placed to supply these. Pan-European monitoring requires effective coordination among field organisations, collections and analytical laboratories for the flow of required specimens, processing and storage of specimens and tissue samples, contaminant analyses delivering pan-European data sets, and provision of specimen and population contextual data. Collections are well-placed to coordinate this. The COST Action European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility provides a well-developed model showing how this can work, integrating a European Raptor Biomonitoring Scheme, Specimen Bank and Sampling Programme. Simultaneously, the EU-funded LIFE APEX has demonstrated a range of regulatory applications using cutting-edge analytical techniques. PARC plans to make best use of such sampling and biomonitoring programmes. Collections are poised to play a critical role in supporting PARC objectives and thereby contribute to delivery of the EU’s zero-pollution ambition., This paper was carried out in collaboration between ‘European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility’ (COST Action 16224), and the project ‘LIFE APEX—Systematic use of contaminant data from apex predators and their prey in chemicals management’ (LIFE17 ENV/SK/000355). European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility is supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) and funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union. LIFE APEX is funded by the LIFE Programme, the EU’s funding instrument for the environment and climate action.

We examine the intersection of the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable), the challenges and opportunities presented by the aggregation of widely distributed and heterogeneous data about biological and geological specimens, and the use of the Digital Object Architecture (DOA) data model and components as an approach to solving those challenges that offers adherence to the FAIR principles as an integral characteristic. This approach will be prototyped in the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) project, the pan-European Research Infrastructure which aims to unify over 110 natural science collections across 21 countries. We take each of the FAIR principles, discuss them as requirements in the creation of a seamless virtual collection of bio/geo specimen data, and map those requirements to Digital Object components and facilities such as persistent identification, extended data typing, and the use of an additional level of abstraction to normalize existing heterogeneous data structures. The FAIR principles inform and motivate the work and the DO Architecture provides the technical vision to create the seamless virtual collection vitally needed to address scientific questions of societal importance.

ICEDIG and DiSSCo need to position their role among other related European and global research infrastructures (such as LifeWatch, GBIF, GEO BON, CoL, EoL, BHL, etc.), build on the services of already existing and planned infrastructures (such as EUDAT, EGI, etc.), and closely follow the ESFRI process.This report contains a detailed analysis of where DiSSCo fits in the global landscape of research infrastructures, specifically in the environmental domain, including the various ways how the already existing RIs can profit from DiSSCo and vice-versa. Possible collaboration paths with existing e-infrastructures and initiatives will form part of the analysis. Possible collaboration paths with existing e-infrastructures and initiatives will form part of the analysis output of T9.5.

Preserved specimens in natural science collections have lifespans of many decades and often, several hundreds of years. Specimens must be unambiguously identifiable and traceable in the face of changes in physical location, changes in organisation of the collection to which they belong, and changes in classification. When digitizing museum collections, a clear link must be maintained between the physical specimen itself and the information digitally representing that specimen in cyberspace. The idea of a Natural Science Identifier (NSId) as a neutral, unique, universal and stable long-term persistent identifier (PID) of a ‘Digital Specimen’ is central to museums’ ambitions for widening access. An NSId allows easy identification and referencing of specific Digital Specimens, regardless of type, location, owner or user. It provides a digital doorway to physical specimens through which services for arranging loans and visits can be accessed, as well as opening the door to innovative services for manipulating specimens’ information directly; for work reliant upon discovery of related third-party information; and for demanding 3D modelling and visualization of specimens. Because the work takes place within e-Infrastructures/Cyberspace, new possibilities for analysing hundreds of thousands of specimens simultaneously are opened by exploiting large-scale cloud computing capacity and deep mining/machine learning, for example. There are several established identifier mechanisms that could be used as a basis for NSId, but some variant of Handles is most appropriate over the very long-term because of their neutrality, resistance to change and sustainability. Adopted uses of the Handle system include identification of journal articles and datasets in education and research (using Digital Object Identifiers); film and television programme assets in the entertainment sector; financial derivatives; and for international shipping and construction. Aside from being stable and sustained over time, an essential requirement of a global PID mechanism is independence from the museums/institutions assigning identifiers. NSIds are opaque insofar as no information can or should be inferred solely by inspecting the identifier. Stakeholders change, collections move, and organisations evolve, merge or disappear. Even designations and descriptions of specimens and collections can change. Information should only be revealed when the identifier is resolved via a neutral index. One can debate the most appropriate instantiation of the Handle system but this is not useful. Relevance, ease of use and added-value of the supporting ‘NSId Registry’ (NSIdR) – the index of the different kinds of natural science object and their relations – are the decisive factors. This can be seen from the example of the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR) founded by the major motion picture studios to create a reliable way to identify and track film and TV content distribution. Focus on the object model, promotional branding and value perception in the target user segment are the critical factors for success. Providing such a registry, seamlessly coupled to work practices and language of the professionals addresses the last mile challenge (Koureas et al. 2016). From specimens, class characteristics, storage containers and collections, to specific identifications, images, naming, literature references and more, the NSIdR’s triple-hierarchy object model, rooted in OBO Foundry’s Biological Collections Ontology, is the key to persistently identifying, relating and indexing the entire range of collection objects of interest to scientists and others working in the bio and geo realms. The NSIdR ‘knowledge graph’, interoperable with other identifier schemes, supports novel first- and third-party value-add services such as arranging loans and visits, curation and annotation, and machine-learning for relationship discovery and pattern exploration.

Data science is facing the following major challenges: (1) developing scalable cross-disciplinary capabilities, (2) dealing with the increasing data volumes and their inherent complexity, (3) building tools that help to build trust, (4) creating mechanisms to efficiently operate in the domain of scientific assertions, (5) turning data into actionable knowledge units and (6) promoting data interoperability. As a way to overcome these challenges, we further develop the proposals by early Internet pioneers for Digital Objects as encapsulations of data and metadata made accessible by persistent identifiers. In the past decade, this concept was revisited by various groups within the Research Data Alliance and put in the context of the FAIR Guiding Principles for findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data. The basic components of a FAIR Digital Object (FDO) as a self-contained, typed, machine-actionable data package are explained. A survey of use cases has indicated the growing interest of research communities in FDO solutions. We conclude that the FDO concept has the potential to act as the interoperable federative core of a hyperinfrastructure initiative such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). publishedVersion