Compiled by Olivia Beavers, Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at World Museum, National Museums Liverpool.
Welcome to the December edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.
A monthly blog series featuring the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences, and training opportunities. We are keen to hear from you if you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest, please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.
Sector News
NatSCA Conference & AGM 2025
The 2025 NatSCA conference Call for Papers is open! The deadline to submit is 5pm GMT Friday 17th January. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out to the committee with questions. (conference@natsca.org) We look forward to reading your submissions!
Making a Difference: Showing the Positive Impact of Natural History Collections
The Annual Conference & AGM of the Natural Sciences Collections Association will be held on Thursday 8th and Friday 9th May 2025 at The University of Manchester, Manchester Museum.
Natural history collections are involved in a huge range of work that has enormous positive impacts on people and the planet – this is a conference to share these stories. The #NatSCA2025 conference invites proposals for presentations looking at impact, how our work is making a difference, how we measure it, how we show success, and how we advocate for collections.
We seek ideas from the natural history collections community, educators, collaborators, and beyond. We are interested in practical lessons, unique solutions, new collaborations, and to show what has and hasn’t worked. We are particularly looking for presentations that share the differences museums are making in:
- facing global challenges such as the biodiversity and climate crises, and environmental issues
- improving people’s lives
- changing laws
- social justice, restitution, and decolonisation
We will prioritise papers that focus on sharing ideas, tools, and guidance rather than simply reporting results. We want to make this conference practical and useful, so please try to reflect this in your abstract.
While we have a focus on people that work with natural science collections, we recognise that we can learn from researchers and others in the wider museum sector. We welcome submissions from anyone who wishes to share techniques and ideas with broader relevance and application.
Papers can be presented as: A 20-minute presentation (consisting of a 15-minute talk followed by 5 minutes of Q&A), a 5 minute lightning talk, or a poster stand. Talks can be presented in person or by submission of a pre-recorded presentation, with the option of Q&A then being conducted over live video stream (Zoom).
Deadline for submission: 5pm GMT Friday 17th January
Please send the attached form to: conference@natsca.org
Mammal Society’s 70th Annual Conference – Early Bird discount now closed
28 – 29 March • Bangor, Wales
The 70th Annual Conference will be two packed days of inspiring keynote speakers, workshops, networking and much more!
The Mammal Society’s 70th Annual Conference will bring together diverse stakeholders from the world of mammalogy and mammal conservation to allow exchange of ideas, foster collaboration and partnership, and celebrate achievements and discoveries in the vibrant world of mammal conservation.
The conference is an opportunity to share discoveries, case studies and evidence to inspire and inform action and innovation in mammal conservation from grassroots citizen scientists to policy makers and academics.
Located this year in North Wales, close to the biodiverse waters of the Menai Strait and the red squirrel stronghold on Anglesey, the conference will explore discoveries, challenges, innovations and best practice in the worlds of terrestrial and marine mammal science and conservation.
Now open for Abstracts: submit an Abstract here.
Apply for a Bursary: https://forms.office.com/e/S27hEYaHKm
Local group ticket allocation application form: https://forms.office.com/e/LcDHQCEfvr
Visit https://mammal.org.uk/annual-conference for more information. Full programme announced Jan 2025.
SPNHC 2025 – call for Sessions, Symposia and Workshops
The University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum are pleased to host the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) from May 27-31, 2025.
The conference website is now live at spnhc2025.ku.edu which contains preliminary information on Lawrence, Kansas transportation and travel options, and a tentative agenda for the meeting. This information will be updated with more details concerning accommodations, registration, abstract submission, and more become available.
The deadline for sessions, symposia and workshop submissions is January 10th 2025. The deadline for travel grant submissions is January 31st 2025. For more information, please visit https://spnhc.org/spnhc-2025-call-for-sessions-symposia-and-workshops/ .
British Mammals: Extraordinary Perspectives
The Mammal Society has a few competitions currently open for submissions: in our photography competition this year, we want photographs that are new, exciting, and unusual. This could include never-seen-before shots of behaviours or stages of life; shots that are framed in an abstract or unusual way; or pictures of new research or conservation practices in-the-field.
In our art competition this year, we want your 2D art, including pencil, charcoal, pastel, ink, chalk, watercolour, oils, acrylic, gouache, 2D collage, mixed media, printmaking, screen printing, digital art, pixel art, and more. Every piece of art submitted must include at least one British mammal, and our theme means we are especially seeking art that is abstract or innovative; art that displays unusual behaviours or connections between mammals, the natural world, and us; or art that uses different 2D mediums or methods to explore your connection with mammals.
The winning photography and art submissions have a chance of being displayed at an exclusive exhibition next April – details to be announced.
Mammal Photographer of the Year; Young Mammal Photographer of the Year; Mammal Illustrator of the Year and Young Mammal Illustrator of the Year – these competitions close January 31st 2025 – so there’s still time to enter. Just follow the link here: https://mammal.org.uk/competitions-2025
NEW NatSCA BLOG POSTS for 2025
Do you have something exciting coming up next year that you’d like to promote? Is there a subject you’ve been itching to write about? With over 2000 views a month, the NatSCA blog is a great way of getting your work out there.
Jen is seeking blog posts for 2025, so if you have something in the pipeline that you would love to tell everyone about, drop her a line! This is an excellent opportunity to book yourself in a slot for any time in the year.
If you are interested but have any questions, please email blog@natsca.org. You can also find guidelines on how to contribute here: Guidelines for contributions to the NatSCA blog | NatSCA.
NatSCA Lunchtime Chats
The new lunchtime chats are for members only and run on the last Thursday of every month.
This series is supposed to be informal; no fancy equipment is needed; it will be put out over the NatSCA Zoom platform and there is no fixed format. There will be shaky walks through stores by mobile, demos, plain pieces to camera or traditional PowerPoints if that’s the best way to share images and info. For those who want to take part please email training@natsca.org to put forward your idea; if a stable internet connection for what you want to achieve is tricky, we can put up a pre-recorded video and then speakers can jump in at the end for the discussion.
Bring your sandwiches and a cuppa and we hope to see you on the day! All members will have received a link to join via Zoom (the same link works for all sessions) – if you haven’t, get in touch with membership@natsca.org
Where to Visit
Minute to Midnight
A new exhibition has opened at Gallery Oldham, Greaves Street, Oldham and is running until 1 March 2025.
Five artists based in the North West of England show works which consider the climate emergency and the decline in biodiversity, and their role as artists in relation to these global problems.
The exhibition features thought-provoking work by Rebecca Chesney, Antony Hall, Mishka Henner, Adele Jordan and Rae Story. Many items from Oldham’s natural history collection are displayed alongside the artists’ works.
Tanyptera Trust – Moth Dissection Workshop
The workshop will take place at World Museum on January 24th 2025, 10:30 am to 4:00 pm and is an introduction to the process of dissecting moths for the purpose of identification.
The workshop will be practically based and will concentrate on the methods and processes needed to obtain accurate identifications. There will be a look at the necessary equipment and resources available. If time allows, we will look at creating microscope slides to preserve the evidence of the identification. Click here to sign up or find out more: https://www.northwestinvertebrates.org.uk/event/moth-dissection-workshop/.
What to Read
In the latest Geological Curator’s Group blog Rachel Walcott, Principal Curator, Earth Systems (National Museums Scotland) looks back on a decade in the ‘new’ National Museums Scotland Natural Science Collection Storage and Research Facility.
Dr Alex Bond, Senior Curator in Charge of Birds at the Natural History Museum, has been involved in tracing the fate of the slender-billed curlew. With the recent confirmation of the slender-billed curlew being declared extinct, you can have a quick read of the full article online at the NHM. Alternatively, you can find the full assessment for the status of the slender-billed curlew published in Ibis.
We have two brilliant NatSCA blogs for you this month! The first by Anais Ellis, Project Conservator, Nature + Love at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, discusses her perspective as an emerging conservator in Thoughts on Working with Natural Sciences Collections (and hoping to continue) in the United Kingdom as an Emerging Conservator.
The second blog by Henry McGhie, Curating Tomorrow, provides resources and discusses ideas on how to use museum collections to Address Biodiversity Loss and Climate Change Together: A Great Opportunity for Museums with Natural History Collections.
Where to Work
The University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge is seeking a full-time, fixed-term Assistant Conservator (£30,505 – £34,866). Closing date is January 5th 2025.
The University of Warwick, and Oxford University Museum of Natural History are advertising a fully-funded four-year PhD opportunity as part of the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme on the topic of Evaluating the Influence of Tangible 3D Printed Replicas on the Museum Experience. Applications are now open. Full details and how to apply here.
If you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest please drop an email to blog@natsca.org. Similarly, if you have something to say about a current topic, or perhaps you want to tell us what you’ve been working on, we welcome new blog articles so please drop Jen an email if you have anything you would like to submit.
And a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our readers!
NatSCA 
