How the Colossal Foundation and IUCN Species Survival Commission Plan to Speed Up Global Species Conservation

A four-year, $4 million partnership links the IUCN Species Survival Commission, recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest volunteer conservation-science network, with technology from across Colossal, while IUCN’s Red List standards stay independent.

Key takeaways

• The Colossal Foundation and the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) announced a four-year, $4 million partnership on September 15, 2026.
• The partnership connects more than 11,000 IUCN SSC experts, working in 210 groups across 186 countries, with technology from across Colossal.
• Its four goals cover Red List modernization, grants for overlooked species, a global communications campaign and direct support for the IUCN SSC network.
• IUCN SSC’s scientific independence guides the partnership, and Red List assessments and policy positions will continue to follow IUCN’s established standards.

The Colossal Foundation, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm of Colossal Biosciences, has launched a four-year, $4 million partnership with the IUCN Species Survival Commission to expand the responsible use of advanced technology in species conservation. Announced on September 15, 2026, the agreement pairs IUCN SSC’s global expert network with scientific and technological capabilities from across Colossal. The two organizations plan to build and test tools that help conservation experts collect, organize and analyze evidence more efficiently.

Frequently asked questions

What is the IUCN SSC and Colossal Foundation partnership? It is a four-year collaboration, formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding, that gives IUCN SSC experts access to technology and funding from the Colossal Foundation. The agreement is the first step in the collaboration and sets out four shared goals.

How much is the Colossal Foundation investing? The partnership is valued at $4 million over four years.

What is the IUCN Species Survival Commission? The IUCN SSC is the largest of IUCN’s seven expert Commissions, with more than 11,000 members in 186 countries. Guinness World Records has recognized it as the world’s largest volunteer conservation-science network.

Does the partnership change how Red List assessments are made? No. Red List assessments, scientific evaluations and policy positions will continue to follow IUCN’s established standards and independent expert review.

Which species will the new grants program support? The grants will go to IUCN SSC groups focused on fungi, plants, invertebrates, fishes, reptiles and other species that receive limited conservation attention or funding. Eligibility criteria and a selection process will be announced later.

Have the two organizations worked together before? Yes. The Colossal Foundation has supported Reverse the Red, the IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group and a search for Samoa’s tooth-billed pigeon with the IUCN SSC Pigeon and Dove Specialist Group.

Why the IUCN Red List needs more capacity

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species now covers more than 175,900 assessed species, and more than 49,500 of them, or 28%, are threatened with extinction. Most of the world’s biodiversity still has not been evaluated, and keeping existing assessments current takes sustained scientific capacity. Species are going extinct at least 100 times faster than they did before humans.

Vivek Menon, Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, described the gap the partnership is meant to close. “What we have often lacked is the capacity to move at the scale the crisis demands,” Menon said. “This partnership with the Colossal Foundation gives our network access to tools and resources that can help us direct this knowledge to threatened species and slow down the threat of extinction.”

The four goals of the Colossal Foundation and IUCN SSC partnership

The Memorandum of Understanding organizes the collaboration around four shared goals.

Conservation attention and funding remain uneven, and the grants program is designed to address that gap. Many fungi, plants, invertebrates, fishes and reptiles receive little support even when experts have flagged them as urgent conservation priorities.

What the Colossal Foundation brings to species conservation

Colossal’s work in genome sequencing, gene editing, biobanking, AI and assisted reproductive technologies is producing tools with potential conservation applications. Through the partnership, IUCN SSC experts will evaluate how these and other emerging technologies can be applied responsibly and moved from the lab into practical use by field teams.

“Extinction prevention is a race against time, and the people closest to threatened species should have access to every responsible tool that can help them win that race.” — Matt James, Executive Director, The Colossal Foundation

James added that the Foundation’s aim is to help prevent extinction, not only respond to it, by turning promising technologies into practical, widely available tools for species recovery.

How IUCN SSC’s scientific independence is protected

IUCN SSC’s scientific independence guides every part of the partnership. Red List assessments and policy positions stay under IUCN’s own standards and expert-review processes. Consistent with IUCN’s policy on synthetic biology and nature conservation, IUCN SSC experts will independently evaluate the benefits, risks and appropriate uses of emerging conservation biotechnologies.

Building on years of shared work

The partnership formalizes a relationship that has grown over several years:

• Reverse the Red: The Colossal Foundation supports this action partnership, which IUCN SSC co-chairs with the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
• Asian elephants: The Foundation has provided multi-year general support to the IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group.
• Samoa’s tooth-billed pigeon: With the IUCN SSC Pigeon and Dove Specialist Group and the Samoa Conservation Society, the Foundation is working to locate and conserve the manumea, Samoa’s critically endangered national bird, using field surveys and AI-assisted bioacoustics.

For the Manumea search, the Colossal Foundation’s AI team built a machine learning algorithm that detects the bird’s calls with 95% accuracy.

Ben Lamm, Co-Founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences, framed the partnership as a way to close the distance between the lab and the field. “The future of conservation depends on getting powerful technologies out of the lab and into the hands of the people working closest to species at risk,” Lamm said.

For more on the Foundation’s programs, visit ColossalFoundation.org.