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NatSCA Digital Digest – February 2025

Compiled by Ellie Clark, Collections Moves Team Leader at the Natural History Museum

Welcome to the February edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

Digital Digest is 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

Save the Date: SPPC, June 26th – 27th 2025

The 30th Symposium on Palaeontological Preparation and Conservation will be held in the Netherlands this year on 26-27th June.

The theme will be From Excavation to Exhibition including aspects of the story of how geological collections end up on display in our museums, as well as their conservation and preparation. A call for abstracts and registration is coming soon. For more details visit: https://www.geocurator.org/events/97-sppc

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NatSCA Digital Digest – January 2025

Compiled by Milo Phillips, Digitisation Co-ordinator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Welcome to the January edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the first Digital Digest of 2025.

Digital Digest is 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

First, we have a few conference deadline reminders for the start of the year:

NatSCA Conference & AGM 2025

The 2025 NatSCA conference Call for Papers is closing soon! The deadline to submit is 5pm GMT Friday 17th January. Get in touch with the committee with any 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
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NatSCA Digital Digest – December 2024

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:

Continue reading →

Make Plastic History

Written by Glenn Roadley, Curator of Natural Science, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.

In May 2023, Professor Claire Gwinnett reached out to me with an opportunity to host a public event at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery (PMAG). Claire, Professor of Forensic and Environmental Science at Staffordshire University, is an expert in the study of plastic pollution and has worked with the museum before to lead activities at our various science events, so immediately thought of us when seeing the call for applications for the British Academy’s SHAPE Involve and Engage grants. The programme offered grants of up to £8,000 for innovative engagement activities which highlight humanities research, with partnerships between academic and cultural institutions eligible to apply. Claire and I put our heads together and came up with a plan for a day of family-friendly activities aimed at raising awareness of plastic pollution and the research being undertaken to tackle it. At the centre of these activities would be a workshop run by Dan Lewis, an artist who uses plastic fragments found on the beach to create works of art.

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