The European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT) is the collective answer of 29 leading European, North American and Russian institutions to a call of the European Commission, issued in 2004, for a network in « Taxonomy for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research ». The EDIT consortium agreement has started on the 1rst of March 2006 and will last 5 years. Among the members of EDIT are the premier natural history collections-based institutions worldwide, which have both the management capacity and the will to progress toward EDIT’s objectives. Their collections are global in coverage and are supported by complementary expertise. More than half of the world’s natural history specimens, which constitute the large scale infrastructure for taxonomic research, are held in the repositories of EDIT’s membership. The inclusion in the consortium of network institutions devoted to management of biodiversity data, and of a research organisation directly related to users of taxonomy for agriculture and environment, in addition to the links or inclusion of many partners with universities will facilitate dissemination of EDIT taxonomic research and training toward a wide audience. EDIT will bring together the leading taxonomic institutions in Europe that for historical reasons have developed independently. The association with leading North American and Russian partners will make it a worldwide leading network. The consortium so constituted unites the premier natural history collections-based institutions, to progress toward EDIT’s structural and scientific objectives. Find out more on EDIT's activities here.