SYNTHESYS 3 (http://www.synthesys.info/) is a European Union-funded four-year project begun in 2013, led by the Natural History Museum in London. It is designed to produce an accessible, integrated European resource for researchers primarily in the natural sciences. The SYNTHESYS 3 consortium will create a common, high quality approach to the management, preservation, and long-term access to natural history (NH) collections. It will provide access to the 15 physical collections within SYNTHESYS museums and herbaria and also the wealth of electronically stored data associated with those collections. Experience shows that potential benefactors will include ecologists researching the effects of biodiversity loss or invasive species, environmentalists looking at ocean acidification, biomedical researchers looking at disease vectors, and agricultural scientists looking at crop pollinators.

The overall objective is to significantly improve the accessibility of NH collections for European researchers. Much was achieved in earlier SYNTHESYS 1 and 2 projects, which focused on the management and accessibility of traditional NH collections. As technologies have developed, new collections are growing within NH institutions, comprising two forms: 1) virtual collections (e.g. digital, scanning electron micrograph and video images; metadata; DNA barcodes; and computed tomotography scans) and 2) new physical collections (e.g. frozen tissue, DNA, RNA and proteins). These collections are broadening the types of research that can be undertaken. Currently their management and accessibility are fragmented. SYNTHESYS 3 integrates these new collections and will have a lasting effect on the landscape of the infrastructures, broadening the spectrum of research that can be carried out within them.

Recent advances in information technology and molecular research are already being implemented in NH research and collections management, but there is scope for now making coordinated “quantum leaps” in both areas. SYNTHESYS 3 will provide the framework for integration via the Joint Research Activity (JRA) and the Networking Activities (NA). The NAs will provide a coherent, integrated and sustainable management approach to virtual and new physical collections, which will enable institutions to meet the demands of both current and future users.

The JRA will develop mechanisms that enable institutions to enrich their digital media with metadata to increase their accessibility to a broad range of potential users. SYNTHESYS 3 will support NH institutions in their long-term goal of creating virtual collections and will contribute to the sustainability of these collections. The JRA will also evaluate the use of different types of digitisation techniques to meet the specialist needs that arise in different fields in ways that can provide more effective distant accessing of key specimens.

Central to SYNTHESYS 3 is improved physical access (via Transnational Access) to over 340 million specimens housed by the SYNTHESYS 3 participants – in particular, to over four million type specimens (the one standard specimen to which all others are compared for the purpose of correct naming).

The main beneficiaries of this ambitious integration process will be the European bioscience and geoscience research communities, particularly those with an interest in biological, molecular, and geological diversity.