Effective management of natural science collections is crucial to maximizing their scientific value. They often contain invaluable items like type specimens and reference material, and data that contributes significantly to our understanding of biodiversity, ecology, and evolution. Research institutes often harbor several smaller collections, which are seldom managed properly, as collection management is not their core business, and because they are not directly connected to the natural science collection community. Recognizing these challenges, DiSSCo Flanders (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) has set out to develop a standardized infrastructure for managing natural science collections, ensuring their proper long-term conservation, and facilitating future reuse (Trekels 2022).Within the DiSSCo Flanders consortium of 14 Belgian institutes, we inventoried the collections utilizing the SYNTHESYS+ survey (Van Baelen 2022) and evaluated their state and management practices using the Collections Self-Assessment Tool (CSAT) (Van Baelen, in preparation). At the Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO, Belgium), 15 collections comprising over 558,000 items were cataloged. A significant portion of these, approximately 95%, are marine fish otoliths used for age determination and stock assessments of commercially important fish species. Additionally, ILVO has around 21,000 food- and plant-related items housed within microbial collections. These are instrumental in research related to plant pathology, food spoilage, and biocontrol methods. Furthermore, ILVO maintains several smaller, yet equally important collections. These include insect specimens, macrobenthos reference specimens, an array of seeds and azalea cultivars, marine and agricultural soil samples, and DNA samples from various of the aforementioned collections.To align with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and to connect with the DiSSCo Europe Research Infrastructure, ILVO developed an ...