Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference

RBG Kew Digitisation Programme is ensuring digital access to 8.25M plant and fungi specimens, from over 250 years of collection and curation into a digitised database with free access to all by 2026. Since 2019 RBG Kew has undertaken a programme of work to- 1. Digitise and transcribe Kew’s specimens. 2. Build and implement a new Integrated Collection Management System (ICMS) 3. Develop a new online Data Portal to provide global access to all of Kew’s unrestricted collection data. Why Now? - Over 6.75M (6M Herbarium and 725k Fungarium specimens) of the 8.25M did not have a digital representation of the specimen or associated metadata. - RBG Kew were managing and supporting outdated and uncompliant databases, carrying the risk of data loss and limited accessible data for science and research. - Online access was restricted due to out-of-date data portals which provided less than 20% of Kew’s collection data Sharing our Challenges - Mobilisation, building the Teams and procuring effective Suppliers. - How to capture and adapt to the multiple business requirements to support collections and ongoing transactions records. - How to establish and manage QA standards - Setting sustainable Key Performance Indicators