The Specify Collections Consortium (SCC; www.specifysoftware.org) is a non-profit, collaborative, open-source software community of engaged collection institutions with a vision to advance research and education uses of biological specimen and sample information. SCC was founded in 2018, and processes the data associated with specimens in biological research collections in 38 countries.

The Consortium engineers innovative, open-source software and offers training and services to their members for the digitization, integration and curation of collections data. The collaborative creation and support of platforms and tools in its turn advances the mobilization and engagement of collection data in broader research and computing initiatives for the benefit of its members, science and society.

Quarterly updates of WoRMS will be made available to the Specify Collections Consortium, for inclusion within their collections management software products (Specify 6 and 7). As specimen objects in the different collections are being catalogued, users had been requesting an authoritative list of scientific names, which can serve as a taxonomic backbone within the software. The signed Terms of Use outlines the basis for this collaboration.

As Specify specimen records are ultimately exported to national and international aggregators of specimen information, the usage of WoRMS as the baseline classification for marine taxa ensures a solid and straightforward embedding in the international landscape of marine biodiversity data and networks.

This collaboration also contributes to the continued development of the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone (LW-SIBB) which also aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data, at filling the gaps in our knowledge and at avoiding duplication of efforts.