Advancing Scientific Collection-Based Research With the Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl). Journal Article

Overview

Natural history museums provide unique and extremely valuable research resources. However, relatively few museums have externally discoverable records. Biological anthropologists frequently rely on materials in these collections-including skeletal remains, fossil hominins, and nonhuman primate materials-to study human evolution, functional anatomy, and genetic variation. Unfortunately, traditional means of sourcing museum resources, such as curator consultations, published references, or informal research networks, may be inefficient, biased toward certain institutions, and out of date. The Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl), part of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), addresses these challenges by centralizing metadata on scientific collections, enabling researchers to locate research materials, reduce biases, and broaden sampling diversity. GRSciColl supports interdisciplinary collaborations, digital resource sharing, and educational applications, such as data literacy training. It also standardizes institutional references, improves provenance tracking, and data interoperability. By increasing access to collections-including to researchers lacking financial resources-GRSciColl bridges the gap between physical museum holdings and digital research needs, fostering innovation in biological anthropology and other fields.