{"capabilities":"The UK-vESB is a catalogue through which users can view the range of samples available for research along with the standard operating procedures, protocols and best practice employed.\n\nIn the UK, we spend about £16 million each year on collecting and archiving environmental (e.g. biological and chemical) samples for research. The UK virtual environmental specimen bank aims to maximise the return on this investment by creating a centralised open access catalogue.","description":"The purpose of the specimen bank catalogue is to allow specimen collections to be discoverable and allow exploration of what has been collected.   By improving access to information on archived specimens, researchers will be able to develop new science and identify trends in emerging environmental pressures and threats.","fundingSources":"The UK-vESB is funded by UKRI through the UKSCAPE Programme","id":"ba93bae6-c2ef-4282-be11-2b2f9b9f6cce","infrastructureCategory":{"value":"data","description":"Environmental data and information","infrastructureClass":"Digital infrastructures","uri":"http://vocabs.ceh.ac.uk/ri/data"},"infrastructureChallenge":[{"value":"Pollution","uri":"http://vocab.ceh.ac.uk/ri#Pollution"}],"lifecycle":"The first public version of the UK-vESB will host records from UK-SCAPE projects (e.g. Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme (PBMS), National Fish Tissue Archive, UKCEH Countryside survey soils and vegetation). The utility of this service will be evaluated by the community and feedback used to develop and enhance the final UK-vESB for roll-out to the UK research environment and the public with a possibility to include catalogue entries from an international audience; interest was ascertained from attendees at the 5th International Conference on Environmental Specimen Banks, Sweden when the UK-vESB concept was presented in 2019.\n","metadataDate":"2025-04-09T09:24:25","onlineResources":[{"url":"https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/sa/documents","function":"website","type":"OTHER"}],"owners":[{"familyName":"Chaplow","givenName":"Jacky","displayName":"Jacky Chaplow","organisationName":"UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology","organisationIdentifier":"https://ror.org/00pggkr55","role":"pointOfContact","email":"enquiries@ceh.ac.uk","address":{"city":"Lancaster"},"fullName":"Jacky Chaplow","pointOfContact":"UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology"}],"partners":"PBMS, WILDCOMS partner schemes and the specimen banking community","resourceIdentifiers":[{"code":"https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/ba93bae6-c2ef-4282-be11-2b2f9b9f6cce"}],"scienceArea":"Pollution","title":"The virtual UK-Environmental Specimen Bank catalogue (UK-vESB)","type":"infrastructureRecord","uniqueness":"It is the only UK national virtual specimen archive","uri":"https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/ba93bae6-c2ef-4282-be11-2b2f9b9f6cce","users":["Our aim to enable researchers and specimen holders to share resources and ‘advertise’ holdings, protocols and best practice and welcome participation from all relevant disciplines that are collecting, storing and archiving samples including those from research activities and museum collections."]}