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Science Strategy 2013-17 A new age of discovery
CONTENTS
Foreword 1 About NHM Science 2 A new voyage of discovery 3 Three Focal Areas Focus area 1. Scientific discovery 4 Focus area 2. Scientific infrastructure 5 Focus area 3. Scientific engagement 6 Five Challenges Challenge 1. The Digital NHM 7 Challenge 2. Origins, evolution & futures 8 Challenge 3. Biodiversity discovery 9 Challenge 4. Natural resources & hazards 10 Challenge 5. Science, society & skills 11 Resources & funding 12 Measuring success 13
Front cover image: Visualisation of the four hundred thousand Earth and Life science specimens georeferenced in the NHM collections database, as of April 2013. The length of the line is proportional to a log of the number of specimens sampled in each locality. An interactive version of this visualisation can be found at http://data.nhm.ac.uk/globe
FOREWORD This is a time of extraordinary opportunities for the Natural History Museum.
Digital and molecular technologies promise to revolutionise our core scientific disciplines. These technologies are not only game changers in terms of the type and scope of the science that we can do, they also make it possible to distribute our data and findings to a truly global audience. Taken together with urgent needs to find scientific solutions to major environmental problems and to engage the public with the use of science in the natural world, these advances bring the Museum’s work to the forefront of essential scientific endeavors. It is also a time of profound change in the way that science is done. Although individual scientists continue to make important discoveries, it is increasingly common for institutions to join forces to address major scientific problems. Similarly, mass citizen science has made it possible to undertake projects that were previously unfeasible. Such approaches present us with the opportunity to capitalise on our unique public profile, and our national and international collaborative networks, to forge new coalitions to take on questions that have previously been beyond our grasp.
Alongside these opportunities we also find ourselves in an extremely challenging financial climate. To take advantage of new technologies and fulfill our scientific and public missions we must diversify the funding sources that have traditionally supported our activities. More than ever before we will need to demonstrate the value of work, and our ability to form effective coalitions, to tackle the major scientific and societal questions of our time. A key element of our strategy is to prioritise activities on where we judge we can make the greatest scientific impact. We will do this by focusing on the following five major scientific challenges:
Five challenges: 1. The Digital NHM 2. Origins, evolution & futures 3. Biodiversity discovery 4. Natural resources and hazards 5. Science, society & skills
The overall purpose of this strategy is to chart a path by which the Museum can take full advantage of the opportunities available. It is a time for us to change, to grow and to evolve as individuals and as a unique scientific community. The Natural History Museum has adapted successfully many times over its 200-year history. We will adapt this time as well and emerge as a better, more united, more effective, and more innovative team for having done so.
Professor Ian Owens Director of Science
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ABOUT NHM SCIENCE The NHM is one of the world’s great natural history museums, combining excellence in scientific discovery, scientific collections, training and public engagement. Its scientific mission is to answer questions of broad significance to science and society using its unique expertise and collections, and to share, communicate and apply its skills and findings The collective expertise of Museum staff represents a unique national and international resource. The scientific staff is one of the largest expert bodies of its kind in the world, with approximately 300 scientists working with an equivalent number of scientific associates, students, visitors and volunteers. Their activities span the earth and life sciences with fields of expertise that include planetary sciences, mineralogy, palaeontology, taxonomy, systematics, biodiversity, genomics, and informatics. The Natural History Museum has a long-standing reputation for authority and innovation in the study and classification of natural diversity, collaborating with a wide range of institutions across the world. Each year its scientists publish several hundred scientific papers, including regular contributions to high impact international journals, and provide expert advice to Government and industry. The core duty of the Natural History Museum is to protect, develop and provide access to what is arguably the world’s most important natural history collection. In addition to traditional specimen collections the NHM is home to a large collection of library materials, archives and art, and is developing new molecular and digital collections. The Museum also plays a lead role in a series of national and international networks, bringing together global collections information and expertise, and driving the adoption of new technologies and standards.
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The Natural History Museum provides unparalleled opportunities to engage the public with scientific ideas and findings: this is a fundamental part of the work of the museum’s scientists. Individual scientists regularly interact face-to-face with public audiences, appear in the media, and create new galleries, exhibitions and web resources. Together with collaborators, the NHM also develops innovative approaches to large-scale citizen science that directly engages the public with the process of scientific discovery of the natural world. Another important area of the Museum’s activity is capacity building in its fields of scientific expertise. In partnership with universities, at any one time the Museum supervises more than 100 PhD students, teaches a growing number of MSc/MRes courses, and either leads or participates in a series of international training courses and networks of excellence. Building on the Museum’s unique national role, we also train students in how to engage the public with scientific issues and discoveries. The NHM’s scientific activities are funded through a combination of grant-in-aid support from the UK Government, which is provided by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and a range of external sources including research councils, charities, trusts, industry, consultancy contracts, corporate sponsorship and individual philanthropic gifts.
A new voyage of discovery Our scientific mission is to answer questions of broad significance to science and society using our unique expertise and collections, and to share, communicate and apply our skills and findings.
Our distinctive approach integrates activity across three focal areas: 1. Scientific discovery 2. Scientific infrastructure 3. Scientific engagement Our priorities are framed by five challenges: 1. The digital NHM 2. Origins, evolution & futures 3. Biodiversity discovery 4. Natural resources and hazards 5. Science, society & skills
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FOCUS AREA 1. SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY We provide answers to questions of fundamental scientific importance and broad relevance to society using our unique collections and expertise.
We will enhance our role as a global leader in key areas of our core disciplines of earth sciences and life sciences, and in the use of new approaches to collections-based research and informatics, to address major scientific questions. We also aim to increase the impact of our work on large-scale environmental analyses and predictive modeling. Our distinctive approach is to use the combination of our collections and our specialist expertise in taxonomy, systematics, mineralogy and informatics to tackle scientific questions in novel way. This approach distinguishes us from universities and other research institutes and allows us to form complementary partnerships with a diverse international network of other institutions. Key topics of investigation include new approaches to taxonomy and systematics, the origin and evolution of life, the earth and the solar system; environmental change; biodiversity discovery and loss; global health; food security; and the sustainable exploitation of natural resources.
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Objectives: To carry out distinctive, internationally excellent and relevant research, related to our collections: • Further our understanding of the processes that create and maintain biological and geological diversity. • Focus our activities on questions of high priority in science and to society. • Address ‘grand challenges’ in taxonomy and systematics to maximize our contributions to the fields of earth and life sciences. To increase the quality and impact of our research and establish scientific leadership: • Increase the impact of our scientific output. •W in more external funding to support our scientific work. • Lead and participate in collaborative partnerships and networks to address our five major scientific challenges. Develop national and international capacity in our areas of scientific activity: • Deliver postgraduate training programmes at PhD and MSc/MRes levels. • Establish a portfolio of specialist training courses in science, curation and public engagement. • Develop new on-line training programmes.
FOCUS AREA 2. SCIENTIFIC INFRASTRUCTURE We will develop our collections and science facilities to provide state-of-the-art infrastructures to support the international scientific community.
Our core role is to protect, develop and provide access to our globally important scientific collections for the benefit of future generations. We will work together with our national and international partners to harness the opportunities offered by digital, molecular and imaging revolutions. These technologies will enable us to enhance the value of global natural history collections by improving the accessibility and utility of collection data in both the physical and virtual realms.
Objectives: To develop, refine and care for the collection and related information: • P rovide a safe and secure physical environment for all of our collections. • Prioritise the development of our collections to facilitate the work of our diverse users. • Deliver improved conservation care to our collections through the development of a modern collections conservation facility. To provide access to our collections and information: • Improve physical and virtual access to our collections and track the impact of the use of our information. • Complete the databasing of our collections and make the information available in an open digital format. • Make our collections available to researchers outside life and earth sciences. To develop and exploit new technologies • Develop genomic and digital collections and information to support our five major science challenges. • P rovide a national facility for the molecular, digital and physical analysis and imaging of natural history collections. • Establish a collaborative network of scientific facilities to support collections and research activities.
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FOCUS AREA 3. SCIENTIFIC ENGAGEMENT We will take full advantage of the unrivalled opportunities that the NHM presents to engage the public with our collections, with contemporary scientific discoveries, and with topical debates regarding the natural world.
Our goal is to maximise the impact of our work by using our collections and our science to inspire greater understanding of the natural world. This will be achieved as part of the Museum’s public programmes, which aim to engage not only to the huge number of visitors that come to the museum each year but also our growing outreach networks and online audiences. The NHM will work in partnership to engage the public on the scientific ideas that underlie major societal issues - such as biodiversity loss, climate change and environmental sustainability - and provide a trusted voice of authority on those aspects of natural world that lie within our fields of expertise.
Objectives: To develop & deliver science-rich engagement activities and material: • Establish a series of regular events and online portals to engage the public with the NHM’s scientific activities. • Develop a series of substantial public engagement initiatives focused on our five major science challenges. To engage the public with the science underlying major societal issues: • Act as a hub for engaging the public with UK biodiversity science. • Deliver series of special events to engage the public with topical environmental issues. To provide expertise and evidence to support policy development: • Take a lead role in developing a UK strategy for taxonomy and systematics. • S upport international organisations in policy development relating to our expertise.
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CHALLENGE 1. THE DIGITAL NHM A new generation of natural history museums
The Natural History Museum houses more than 70 million natural history specimens - digital technology offers us the prospect of making all of that information available to a truly global audience. Such changes promise to revolutionise how collections are used to understand the natural world and to address environmental issues. To make this happen we must re-invent the way in which museums collect and store information, the way in which that information is made available, and the way in which the great natural history museums of the world work together as a global network. Our goal over the next five years is to position the NHM at the forefront of this wave of change to create a new generation of digital museums.
Over the next five years, we will: • Establish high-throughput digitisation pipelines to make large volumes of our collections and data available digitally. • Work with our UK partners to create national virtual natural history collections. • Build online taxonomy, diagnostics and analytical tools focused on our five major science challenges including agro-ecosystems, parasitic diseases, and economically important geological exploration.
We will work with our partners to create digital collections and tools that will enable rapid taxonomy, diagnostics and analysis of high priority groups such as type specimens, meteorites, UK biodiversity, invasive species, and parasites and their vectors.
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CHALLENGE 2. ORIGINS, EVOLUTION AND FUTURES Understanding the past and predicting the future
The Earth is entering a period of unprecedented environmental change that threatens the existence of the global systems upon which life depends. One of the great scientific missions is, therefore, to understand the consequences of this change for natural and anthropogenic ecosystems. Natural history collections offer a unique opportunity to address this challenge because they document the origin and evolution of the solar system, earth and life, and the effect of previous periods of change. Along with our collaborators we will use our collections and our knowledge of deep time to identify the mechanisms that determine the impact of such changes. Our strategic goals are to understand the processes that underlie key transitions in the origins and evolution of the solar system, earth and life, and to use this understanding as a framework to predict the impact of future changes.
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Over the next five years, we will: •U nderstand the processes underlying key transitions in the origins and evolution of the solar system, earth and life. •U se ancient DNA technologies to unlock the genetic information contained in our collections. •E xpand our collaborative research activities to predict the impact on ecosystems of future environmental change scenarios.
CHALLENGE 3. BIODIVERSITY DISCOVERY A 21st century tool kit for the exploration of life
At least 75% of life remains to be discovered. Based on the current rate of discovery, that task will take more than 500 years to complete. Humanity needs to develop new approaches to the discovery of biological diversity and to apply this information to the understanding and preservation of natural and artificial ecosystems. Natural history museums are the logical institutions to lead this initiative, given their expertise in taxonomy, systematics and understanding natural diversity.
Over the next five years, we will:
New technologies are available to help in this task, including molecular approaches, web-based taxonomy, informatics and citizen science. We plan to play a principal role in driving a paradigm shift in taxonomy by establishing an international task force of leading institutions to bring together new technologies to develop a modern tool kit for biodiversity discovery.
•E xpand and intensify current work on UK biodiversity, developing identification tools to serve stakeholder needs and an innovative citizen science network.
•D evelop new molecular and digital tools to describe biological diversity rapidly. •M onitor large-scale patterns and changes in undiscovered biodiversity by applying modern discovery tools to global networks of sites in mega-diverse systems.
We will work with our partners to use this tool kit to explore previously undiscovered biodiversity in megadiverse systems such as tropical forests, deep oceans and microbial communities.
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CHALLENGE 4. NATURAL RESOURCES AND HAZARDS Securing the future of our food, our health and our materials
The global human population is predicted to reach 10 billion within the next 50 years, a five-fold increase in the space of a century. This population explosion poses a series of major problems: declining food availability, emergence of new diseases, and depletion of the scarce elements upon which new technology is based. The Museum’s unique scientific expertise in taxonomy, systematics and mineralogy and collections allow us to address these problems in novel ways, such as exploring new sources of food by identifying the wild relatives of crop plants that will thrive in changing environments, predicting the spread of emergence of diseases, and finding new ways to discover and extract scarce elements in a sustainable fashion. The first step in realizing these goals is to work with our collaborators to develop new scientific approaches and tools that will secure future supplies of food and scare mineral resources and help identify neglected and emerging diseases.
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Over the next five years, we will: •E xploit our expertise in taxonomy and systematics to understand the wild relatives of crop plants and their associated ecosystems to drive the development of new approaches to food security. •D evelop digital and molecular resources to facilitate the rapid identification and characterization of neglected and emerging diseases. •C reate new tools to facilitate the identification and commercial evaluation of new sources of scarce mineral resources in a sustainable fashion.
CHALLENGE 5. SCIENCE, SOCIETY & SKILLS Empowering future generations in the science of nature
The NHM’s national and international profile provides us with a unique opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists, and to equip them with the skills required to understand natural diversity and engage with society. Together with museums, universities and other partners we will develop a portfolio of training programmes in science, curation and public engagement. These courses will integrate training in the traditional skills that underlie our core disciplines with the new digital and molecular technologies that are revolutionising our field. We will also use the Museum’s national profile to explore new ways to engage society in both contemporary scientific debates and the processes of scientific discovery. To do this we will build on our existing expertise in citizen science, online blogging, and largescale public science events.
Over the next five years, we will: •D evelop a collaborative national programme of training in science, curation and public engagement. •E stablish an innovative citizen science programme that combines broad public participation with high impact, relevant science. •D eliver a suite of face-to-face and online events that engages the public with contemporary scientific questions and discoveries.
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RESOURCES AND FUNDING To achieve our goals we need to manage effectively our existing resources, and expand and diversify our sources of external funding.
Our most important resources are our collections and our expert staff. In both of these areas we are making bold moves to develop and implement new approaches to working together across disciplines and with collaborators. For our collections these approaches include creating a new Earth Sciences Centre and developing a long-term strategy for collection storage to optimize our use of our South Kensington site. For our people we are creating new ways of working to promote flexible and creative teams. We will fund our activities by increasing our efforts to secure support through large grants and corporate sponsorship and philanthropic gifts.
Objectives: To develop a professional, versatile & capable team: • P rovide a programme of training and mentorship opportunities for our staff. • Establish a fair, efficient and transparent framework for setting and reviewing performance goals for our staff. • Achieve an effective balance between the development of existing staff to work in new areas and the recruitment of external staff with new expertise. To invest in core digital and estate infrastructure: • Create a new Earth Sciences Centre to house our worldfamous palaeontology and mineral collections and provide a stimulating scientific environment. • Develop our natural history library to create a hybrid physical-digital facility and make efficient use of space at South Kensington. • Develop a long-term strategy for collection storage to optimize our use of our South Kensington site. To provide financial stability & viability: • Lead and participate in collaborative teams to win largescale funding for programs and consortium projects. • P articipate and contribute to generation of commercial income, including science consultancy. • Mount a successful campaign to support scientific activity through corporate sponsorship and philanthropy.
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MEASURING SUCCESS Scientific milestones for the next five years
We will monitor our progress against the objectives identified in this strategy using a combination of quantitative and qualitative high-level targets. The list below highlights key areas of intent. Scientific impact
Publish 1,000 papers in leading scientific journals
Digital access Ensure 20 million of our specimens are available in digital formats Engagement Deliver 1 million face-to-face science engagements with public audiences Collections Continue to develop our collection as globally important resource for scientific reference and discovery Diagnostic tools Create diagnostic tools to allow rapid identification of high priority groups including UK biodiversity, pests and invasive species, and disease agents and their vectors Deep time Mount a major initiative to identify and describe key transitions in the origin and evolution of life, earth and the solar system Science & society Bring about a better understanding of science and its role in society by enriching the NHM’s public programme UK network Establish UK networks for taxonomy and systematics, citizen science, collections management, and training Earth Sciences Create a new Earth Sciences Centre on our South Kensington site Funding Raise £10 million additional funds to enable our work on our five major science challenges
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Our Patron: HRH The Duchess of Cambridge The Natural History Museum Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD United Kingdom +44 (0)20 7942 5000 www.nhm.ac.uk
