The SPNHC TDWG annual conference convenes informatics professionals from two of the preeminent standards setting organizations for biodiversity informatics. The meeting will be held in Dunedin, New Zealand from 25 August until 1 September. Topics for the conference will include challenges from collections management, data management, evolution of the Darwin Core standard, data interoperability, and image management. Tension often arises between the quest for high quality standardized data with user-friendly software tools to support it, and the needs of collections professionals, who are usually working with time, technical and financial limitations, to make the best decisions in curating their collections and associated data. Conference workshops will focus on bioinformatics, digitization, collections management at conservation.

The JRS Biodiversity Foundation funds support travel grants for African scientists to attend the conference, creating opportunities for individual skill-building and network formation. Three early-career African scientists were selected from applicants to present their work at the conference and will receive full support. The expected outcomes are professional relationships among African and global participants that lead to collaborative projects, training opportunities, and increased African membership in TDWG and SPNHC.

• Conference proceedings will be made available following the conference.
• Abstracts from presentations will be made available before the conference begins here.
• Presentations from the conferences will be made available following the conference.

A total of 365 informatics professionals from around the globe attended the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections and Biodiversity Information Standards joint conference. The JRS funds were dedicated to bringing early career African scientists to attend and present at the meeting. TDWG selected three early-career African scientists from applicants to present their work at the conference, but unfortunately only one of these scientists was able to attend; the other two were unable to obtain the visas in time. This experience was a reminder on the challenging process of obtaining visas which present yet another hurdle to African scientists to participate in international professional networks. A major take away from this conference experience was to encourage African attendees to apply as early as possible to obtain the visas.

We are delighted to join the Delta Designs Ltd, Otago Museum, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Picturae, University of Otago, Pensoft, Index Data, Axiell, Distributed System of Scientific Collections, Vernon Systems, and Biodiversity Heritage Library in funding the SPNHC and TDWG 2018 Conference. Every year since 2011, JRS has supported African scientists to attend this annual meeting. In 2015, JRS had the pleasure of supporting a pre-TDWG conference training workshop for 25 Sub-Saharan African biodiversity information specialists to teach them to utilize biodiversity informatics technologies. Over the years, JRS has gone on to support several of the travel award recipients and workshop attendees in long- term projects. Conference support is an important element of our capacity development and partnership programs and we are proud to support young scientists. Furthermore, JRS requires its grantees to publish data in secure global repositories and to accepted global standards such as those supported by TDWG and SPNHC.