*Apologies for cross-posting* Dear BHL Wikimedia Working Group Members Please see the message below from the BHL Executive Committee Chair, David Iggulden, with important information about the BHL Program. To ensure all members of BHL Committees and Working Groups are aware of this news, we are forwarding this information to our various listservs. Thank you, JJ ________________________________ From: BHL-STAFF BHL-STAFF@SI-LISTSERV.SI.EDU on behalf of David Iggulden D.Iggulden@KEW.ORG Sent: Monday, March 24, 2025 5:22 PM To: ListServ bhl-staff BHL-STAFF@SI-LISTSERV.SI.EDU Subject: Transitioning BHL Secretariat away from the Smithsonian
External Email - Exercise Caution
Dear all,
I need to share with you some difficult news which I received last week from Dr. Ellen Stofan, regarding the Smithsonian’s support for the BHL Secretariat going forward. Ellen is the Under Secretary for Science and Research at the Smithsonian.
Her email included the following:
“Due to changing circumstances including a constrained budget environment, we no longer have the capacity to hold this Secretariat. We are informing you as chair of the Board that we will cease this role as of 1/1/2026. We will remain a member of the BHL and continue to be an active participant.
We want to assure a smooth transition and will be in contact to arrange a meeting to discuss a transition plan for moving the Secretariat, including any BHL funds and records we currently manage as Secretariat, to another BHL member institution.”
This news is disappointing and came as a shock. My response to Ellen, mainly attempting to seek clarification on two key points, is attached for your information. I received a reply today from Ellen confirming that all three Secretariat positions will be affected by this change and need to be hosted and funded by another Partner and/or means. Her reply did not address my other query about the hosting of the technical infrastructure and staff supporting technical development.
I appreciate you will have many questions, the majority of which we will not be able to answer immediately. The Executive Committee and Secretariat have already begun initial conversations around transition planning despite the many questions needing clarification. We would like to collect your questions and compile them into a Google document so that we can begin to respond to them and seek further clarification from the Smithsonian where needed. Please use the following link to add your questions: Transitioning BHL Secretariat Away From Smithsonian - Questions - Google Docshttps://docs.google.com/document/d/16o4hnY2rNnpETNIDFkXRG_lzhSsUVLvRdTwr-BCf9uA/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.z0wsp03g25e5
We have a Partner Call scheduled for this Thursday at 8pm EDT (UTC-4). This will proceed as planned, but we will also now have a 2nd Partner Call this Wednesday at 11am EDT (UTC-4) to give the maximum opportunity for initial responses to be shared and discussion to take place. For these special calls, both BHL Partners and Staff are very welcome to attend.
We will then be looking to explore options and build on these discussions at the Annual Meeting during the week of 7th April.
This is a sensitive situation, and I request that we are all mindful of this in our responses and maintain the professionalism our consortium has become so well respected for. I appreciate you will wish to share this news with colleagues, but I ask that you keep the above communication from Dr. Stofan within your institutions/organisations at this time.
We appreciate your cooperation in managing our communications around this sensitive matter as we work through these changes together.
Kind regards,
David
David Iggulden, Chair
BHL Executive Committee
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