Research projects


International Projects


  • TETTRIs  Transforming European Taxonomy through Training, Research and Innovations
TETTRIs is a pan-European project and consortium funded by the European Union which aims at fostering transformative changes in the role of taxonomic research to tackle challenges in the face of an accelerating worldwide biodiversity crisis. Our central goal is to boost taxonomic capacity, to build up synergies and to transfer critical scientific knowledge to societal actors.
The community of institutions, collections and experts, including the NHM Vienna, which are part of the CETAF taxonomic network, works closely together to gather taxonomic knowledge and expertise required to study, protect and manage biological diversity throughout Europe. We want to provide easy and open access to know-how and resources that should be sustainable over time and integrated into decision-making processes. To achieve this, TETTRIs contributes to a transformation of taxonomy in Europe through training, research transfer and innovation.

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  • Skills4EOSC - Skills for the European Open Science Commons: Creating a Training Ecosystem for Open and FAIR Science
The EU funded project Skills4EOSC brings together leading experiences of national, regional, institutional and thematic Open Science (OS) and Data Competence Centres from 18 European countries with the goal of unifying the current training landscape into a common and trusted pan-European ecosystem , in order to accelerate the upskilling of European researchers and data professionals in the field of FAIR and Open Data, intensive-data science and Scientific Data Management.

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  • F.A.I.R. Information Cubes – FAIRiCUBE
The core objective of the FAIRiCUBE project, which is funded by the EU, is to enable players from beyond classic Earth Observation domains to get easy access, to process, and to share multidimensional gridded environmental data and algorithms according to the FAIR and TRUST principles.
A central goal of this project is to leverage the power of machine learning analyses on multidimensional datacubes for a broader range of governance and research institutions from diverse fields, who at present cannot easily access and utilize these potent resources.

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  • bITEM - Beyond the Item: Biographies and Itineraries of Cultural Heritage Objects in Museums and beyond
The bITEM project - short for “Beyond the Item - Biographies and Itineraries of Cultural Heritage Objects in Museums and beyond” - aims to present well-known museum objects in a state-of-the-art web application that is freely accessible online. The objects and their biographies are vividly described and, in addition to images and texts, 3D models as digital twins, timelines, and story maps are made available. Furthermore, the objects are presented with important actors in network visualizations. Object biographies thus become traceable and the journey of the exhibits to the museum is easy to understand. Within the project, data is digitized according to the FAIR principles. Data are mapped using CIDOC CRM and provided online. OpenAtlas is used as backend to acquire, edit and manage data. It is entirely built upon open source software.
Research and development of the bITEM project is hosted at the NHM Vienna as well as at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science at the University of Vienna, and formerly the LBI ArchPro. This project is funded by the go!digital 3.0 program of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (GD3.0_2021-17).

Contact: viola.winkler@nhm.at
 




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  • DiSSCo
The NHM is one of currently more than 120 institutions from 21 European countries involved in the development of the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo).
DiSSCo is intended to create a European research infrastructure for collection-based data under the umbrella of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI).
DiSSCo aims to create a so far unaccomplished opening, connection, use and application of natural science collections in the European area and to fundamentally improve the possibilities of making natural science collections available for day-to-day research. Currently, the project is in the preparatory phase with DiSSCo Prepare, which is funded by the European Commission, and will move into the construction phase in 2022.

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  • OSCA – Open Scientific Collections Austria
In this context, the NHM also has played a leading role in the formation of the Austrian consortium OSCA – Open Scientific Collections Austria. This consortium of major Austrian institutions with natural science collections aims to expedite the digitisation of Austrian natural and geoscientific collections, makes them available on a common portal, and thus also enables the Austrian contribution to DiSSCo.

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  • SYNTHESYS +
The project SYNTHESYS+, funded by the European commission, lays the foundations for the development of an integrated European research infrastructure of natural science collections.
It consists of the subdivisions Network, Virtual Access, Research und Transnational Access. The latter provides international scientists (with a focus on the EU) with access to the scientific collections of the participating museums.

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  • COST MOBILISE - Mobilising Data, Policies and Experts in Scientific Collections
MOBILISE is a European funded COST-network and a contribution to the development of DiSSCo. It aims at funding  a cooperative network in Europe to support excellent research activities and to facilitate the knowledge and technology transfer of natural science collections.




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Austrian Projects


  • ABOL – The Austrian Barcode of Life
ABOL is an Austrian network of institutions and experts dealing with research on biodiversity.
In the long term, ABOL aims at generating DNA barcodes of all Austrian animal, plant, and fungi species. The DNA barcodes will be available in a public online database. Project management and coordination of ABOL are located at the NHM.

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  • Relaunch Kulturpool / Kulturerbe digital (Digital Cultural Heritage)
The relaunch of the “Kulturpool” or “Kulturerbe digital” (Digital Cultural Heritage) is the complete redesign and development of a central search and service portal for Austria’s digitally available cultural heritage in terms of content and technology. The goal is to make digitized material from museums, libraries, and archives findable and freely accessible to the public. Additionally, the project supports institutions during the digitization process. The project aims to create a network for Austrian institutions to share their collections and connect with different target groups. The project is carried out on behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.

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NHM Vienna comprehensive projects



  • Colonial Acquisition Contexts at the Natural History Museum Vienna (KolText)

Did collections and convolutes come to the NHM Vienna under colonial contexts? What definitions and research strategies are necessary to answer this question?

The project >>>


: Inventory register (Photo: © W. Reichmann)
Inventory register (Photo: © W. Reichmann)
  • Research Project: „Modelling museum pests – insects and fungi – and climate change“.
Pests, such as the webbing clothes moth (Tineola bisselliella), the biscuit beetle (Stegobium paniceum) or carpet beetles (Attagenus unicolor), can not only infest materials at home, but also damage museum objects. Furthermore, fungi and other microorganisms can damage entire collections and must be regularly monitored, same as the insects.
Since 1. July 2021, this 4-year project, funded by the Austria Academy of Sciences, is based at the NHM. The project is part of the call „Heritage Science“.

The project >>>







: Damage from biscuit beetles on a historic book
Damage from biscuit beetles on a historic book
  
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