Since many years, the BCCM consortium is actively involved in European and international associations of culture collections such as the European Culture Collections' Organisation (ECCO) and the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC).
During the last annual general meeting of ECCO (Athens, June 2013), the BCCM/DCG diatom collection, the BCCM/ITM mycobacteria collection and the BCCM/ULC cyanobacteria collection have become official member collections of ECCO. As such, they join a group of more than 60 European culture collections discussing all aspects of the culture collections’ activities and tasks.
Moreover, during this meeting, Dr Marijke Hendrickx, manager of the BCCM/IHEM biomedical fungi and yeasts collection, was elected secretary of ECCO. In this function, she succeeds Dr Danielle Janssens, the former manager of the BCCM/LMG bacteria collection, who retired in the summer of 2013.
With this extended membership and the renewed involvement in the ECCO board, the BCCM consortium demonstrates its continued interest in networking and collaborating with partner organisations abroad.
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