"Building the databases of Life: accelerating research by databasing biological collection data" is the title of the project of the consortium of the Zoological Museum Amsterdam, the Fungal Biodiversity Centre, the National Herbarium of the Netherlands and Natural History Museum Naturalis. Digitising selected parts of their large collections will enable these institutes to carry out innovative research in the fields of Biodiversity and Global Change, as well as Assembling the Tree of Life. All digitised collection data will be made available to GBIF, with the help of NLBIF and ETI.