Welcome to the DigiHerb portal

The DigiHerb portal, developed for the Consortium of Northwest Europe Herbaria (CoNWEH), provides access to herbarium specimen data from member institutions, with a general focus on specimens collected in the region and around the world. CoNWEH originated from the DigiHerb project, an EU co-funded collaboration between the National Herbarium of Ireland (DBN), Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe (KR), and Ghent University (GENT). The project aims to empower smaller regional herbaria in Northwest Europe to digitise, manage, and share their collections efficiently, ensuring their long-term preservation and accessibility.

At DigiHerb, we recognise herbarium digitisation as an essential tool for preserving botanical heritage, advancing biodiversity research, and informing conservation policies. By making plant specimens globally accessible, digitisation enhances collaboration among stakeholders and supports species conservation in the face of global change. The DigiHerb initiative exemplifies the power of shared resources, optimizing costs while ensuring data interoperability and accessibility. We encourage policymakers, biodiversity managers, and researchers to actively use and integrate digitised herbarium data in their work to drive informed decision-making and innovative research, while also promoting its use in education.

The flora of the Northwest Europe represents a significant portion of Europe's overall plant diversity, includes around 20 to 30 % of the continent's vascular plant species, underscoring its crucial role in biodiversity. It provides diverse habitat like temperate forest, wetlands, and grasslands that support native species.

The DigiHerb project was co-funded by Interreg North-West Europe.