The Coordination Centre for Scientific University Collections has been created in May 2012. The starting point was the ‘German Science Council recommendations on scientific collections as research infrastructures’ (PDF) from January 2011, which proposed the funding of a facility to advise and coordinate university collections throughout Germany. The Coordination Centre is situated at the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and it is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. 

Making the potential of scientific collections visible and available
The Coordination Centre for Scientific University Collections in Germany is situated at the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In an interdisciplinary team, we develop strategies for improving the visibility and availability of the collections. Our objective is to further develop and integrate the collections as decentralised infrastructures for research, teaching and education, with due regard for their diversity and specific local characteristics – on an interdisciplinary and cross-site basis. Since there is no comparable project anywhere – neither in Germany nor the rest of the world – we are breaking new ground in the academic field.

Concerted action
Our work focuses on the coordination of university collections throughout Germany. With this concept, we intend to establish concerted action that includes all participating actors. In workshops and conferences, we join with other experts to develop current standards and recommendations for dealing with scientific collections, and criteria for scientific collections as infrastructures in research, teaching and education. The results are published in the form of handouts and other materials.

Communication and networking
On our website, we provide information on our activities. We also have a news section with current notices of events, publications, funding offers and vacancies. To promote an exchange between collections acting more or less individually, we regularly publish a newsletter and operate the Collection Network mailing list.

Central portal for collections and objects
Another objective of our work is to increase the visibility and availability of scientific collections by means of digital indexing and digitisation. For this purpose, we are creating a central portal for collections and objects, which links the decentralised databases and is integrated into digital research structures. We support projects for collection cataloguing, indexing and digitisation.

Individual consulting
In addition to this coordinating and conceptual work, we also provide individual consulting services in collection-related areas.