Scratchpads was conceived in 2010 as an open-source resource to build a virtual community of biodiversity researchers and foster new collaborations and ways of working.

After 15 years supporting the management of biodiversity data, Scratchpads has now been retired as a hosted platform, with active sites being read-only as of the 30th June 2024.

Scratchpads sites provided an online virtual research environment for biodiversity, allowing anyone to share their data with their research networks. Sites continue to be hosted at the Natural History Museum London.

Each individual Scratchpad remains accessible at its previous address with all its data in perpetuity, so Scratchpads can continue to be used and cited in ongoing research.

We wish to say a big thank you to all Scratchpads users over the years. Thanks to you and your peers, Scratchpads has been a huge success, outlasting more than ten years beyond the scope of the original funding.