The CECT renews its brand image, integrating the visual identity of its hosting institution, the University of Valencia, in a new logo symbolizing microbial cells advancing towards a successful future.

February 17-18, 2024 marks 25 years since the meeting of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Japan, where the term Biological Resource Center (BRC) was coined to refer to an essential part of the infrastructure that supports biotechnology. In that meeting BRCs were defined as specialized resources that acquire, validate, study and distribute collections of viable organisms or replicable parts of these. Besides, a series of actions were initiated to guide the development and consolidation of BRCs following the needs of the international scientific community. Among these actions, the Best Practice Guidelines for Biological Resource Centres were published in 2007.

The Spanish Type Culture Collection (CECT) is nowadays a Biological Resource Center. Its origins date back to 1960, when Prof. Julio R. Villanueva from the CSIC "Jaime Ferrán" Institute of Microbiology, began to collect and preserve research strains from different collaborators, and put them at the service of Spanish microbiologists.

During its more than 60 years of history, CECT has achieved relevant milestones positioning the institution among the most recognized European and world-wide collections, including:

• Membership of the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC) in 1977 and the European Culture Collections Organization (ECCO) in 1983.
• Recognition in 1991 as a service of the University of Valencia (UV), ensuring its long-term sustainability.
• Acquisition of the status of International Depositary Authority of microorganisms for patent purposes under the Budapest Treaty in 1992.
• The integration of the UV (represented by CECT) as a founding partner to the Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure - European Research Infrastructure Consortium (MIRRI-ERIC), www.mirri.org.

With the beginning of the 21st century and the initiatives around the Biological Resource Centers, we understood that the consolidation of CECT at the international level required a commitment to quality and an alignment with the OECD recommendations. Thus, it has been 20 years since CECT obtained the first ISO 9001 certificate and started working to achieve a management system integrating the principles of Best Practices recommended by the OECD.

Currently, CECT plays a key role in the consolidation of BRCs as service providers for the advancement of biotechnology through its participation in MIRRI-ERIC, where it is part of its governing bodies, holding the vice-chair of the National Coordinators Forum and of the Assembly of Members. As part of this new period, CECT makes public today its renewed brand image, integrating the visual identity of its hosting institution (UV), in a new logo that symbolizes microbial cells advancing towards a successful future.