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| European Culture Collections' Organisation | |
|---|---|
| Name | European Culture Collections' Organisation |
| Formation | 1981 |
| Type | Non-profit network |
| Headquarters | Strasbourg |
| Region served | Europe |
| Membership | Culture collections, microbial resource centres |
European Culture Collections' Organisation
The European Culture Collections' Organisation is a pan-European network connecting culture collections and microbial resource centres across Strasbourg, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London to coordinate standards, services, and research activities. It brings together institutions such as the Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen, the National Collection of Yeast Cultures, the Collection de l'Institut Pasteur, and the Scandinavian Culture Collections to support access to biological material for scientists involved with organizations like the European Commission, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, and the Wellcome Trust. The organisation liaises with regulatory and standard bodies including the World Health Organization, the World Federation for Culture Collections, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Founded in 1981, the organisation emerged during discussions among culture collections at meetings in Paris, Berlin, and Rome that followed initiatives from the European Commission Directorate-General for Research and the Council of Europe. Early participants included the Institut Pasteur, the National Collection of Type Cultures, and the American Type Culture Collection as an external collaborator; later engagement expanded to include members from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and the Netherlands. The group developed responses to policy instruments such as the Nagoya Protocol negotiations, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and EU directives influencing access to genetic resources, collaborating with bodies like the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Over decades the organisation organized workshops in cities including Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and Helsinki to harmonize best practices with standards from the International Organization for Standardization, and to integrate technologies from projects funded by Horizon 2020.
Membership comprises national culture collections, university repositories, and specialized microbial resource centres such as the Czech Collection of Microorganisms, the Polish Collection of Microorganisms, the Belgian Coordinated Collections of Microorganisms, and the Hungarian Collection of Microorganisms. Institutional members range from the Max Planck Institute collections and the Karolinska Institutet departments to repositories at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Lisbon. The organisation includes working groups drawing expertise from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the European Food Safety Authority, and the European Medicines Agency; advisory ties extend to the Royal Society, the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Associate members include commercial culture collections like those linked to DSMZ, universities such as University of Milan, and national institutes such as the Istituto Superiore di Sanità.
The organisation provides coordination for accession, authentication, and distribution services used by research programs at the European Molecular Biology Organization, biotechnology firms associated with Biocartis, and public health laboratories such as Public Health England. It promotes cryopreservation techniques employed by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, and supports strain deposit procedures compatible with patent offices like the European Patent Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Services include curated catalogues interoperable with databases managed by the European Bioinformatics Institute, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility; training modules are offered in collaboration with the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Members implement quality systems inspired by ISO 9001, ISO 17025, and standards promoted by the World Health Organization. The organisation coordinates ring trials with partners such as the European Committee for Standardization and the Joint Research Centre to validate microbiological methods used in surveillance by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and food testing by the European Food Safety Authority. It aligns authentication protocols with repositories like the American Type Culture Collection and competence networks such as the European Virus Archive. Accreditation efforts involve national bodies including the British Standards Institution, the Deutsches Institut für Normung, and the Institut national de la propriété industrielle.
The organisation facilitates collaborative projects funded by Horizon 2020 and successor EU programmes with academic partners at the University of Copenhagen, the University of Warsaw, the ETH Zurich, and the University of Barcelona. Training courses are co-delivered with the European Bioinformatics Institute, the Wellcome Trust, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory on topics ranging from genomics to cryopreservation, often featuring speakers from the Pasteur Institute, the Max Planck Society, and the Karolinska Institutet. Collaborative research spans antifungal resistance studies with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, probiotic characterization alongside the International Life Sciences Institute, and biodiversity inventories for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Governance comprises an elected board with representatives from member collections including leaders affiliated with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Natural History Museum, London, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Funding derives from membership fees, project grants from the European Commission, collaborative contracts with agencies like the European Environment Agency, and support from charitable funders such as the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation. Legal and policy engagement occurs with institutions such as the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research, the Council of the European Union, and advisory input to the European Parliament committees on research.
The organisation has enabled standardized deposit systems used in patent examinations at the European Patent Office and enhanced public health responses in outbreaks monitored by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization. Major contributions include harmonized quality frameworks adopted by collections across France, Germany, Spain, and Italy; capacity building in Eastern European members including institutions in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria; and support for biodiversity projects associated with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Global Taxonomy Initiative. Influential collaborations have linked culture collections to genomic initiatives at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, epidemiological networks like the European Surveillance System, and translational research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Category:Microbiology organizations Category:European scientific organizations