Natural History Museum reaches landmark of five million specimens available online as report values economic benefit of digitising the collection to be more than £2 billion

• The Natural History Museum has digitised its five millionth specimen 
• To date there have been 30 billion downloads of these data which are freely available online
• Societal benefits of digitising natural history collections includes global advancements in food security, biodiversity conservation, medicine discovery, minerals exploration and beyond
• A new economic report estimates the value of research enabled by digitisation of natural history collections to be in excess of £2 billion

Over five million specimens – around six percent of the Natural History Museum’s collection –have now been digitised and released onto the Museum’s Data Portal where they can be freely accessed globally. Specimens range from the tiniest crop pests to bats that could help scientists predict and prevent future pandemics.

Helen Hardy, Science Digital Programme Manager at the Natural History Museum, says: ‘This is a huge landmark for us and the combined effort of many digitisers, curators, researchers, data managers and others. Sharing data from our collections can transform scientific research and help find solutions for nature and from nature.

‘Our digitised collections have helped establish the baseline plant biodiversity in the Amazon, found wheat crops that are more resilient to climate change, and support research into the potential zoonotic origins of Covid-19. The research that comes from sharing our specimens has immense potential to transform our world and help both people and planet thrive.’

The five millionth specimen is Stenoperla prasine, part of a current project to digitise a group of freshwater insects known as EPT. Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Plecoptera (stoneflies) and Trichoptera (caddisflies) are three orders of insects found in freshwater systems across the world. These three key groups are important bioindicators, meaning that their presence and the size of their populations can give us an idea about the health of a freshwater habitat. There are approximately 89,000 EPT specimens in the Museum’s collection, and setting this data free will aid research being undertaken by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), to further our understanding of EPT distribution and assess these species’ vulnerability to extinction.

The process of digitisation involves transforming physical information into a digital format. So far 1.7 million insects, 500,000 fossils and 900,000 plants have been digitised. The Museum’s specimens have associated data, such as what they are, and where and when they were collected. This information, along with any additional images or analytical data about the specimen is released onto the Data Portal. These data provide invaluable information for scientists trying to model the past, present and future distributions of organisms across time and space. When this research is used to inform decision-making, these decisions are based on hundreds of years’ worth of data.

The Data Portal is an open data platform which makes the Museum’s research and collection datasets findable, accessible and reusable, allowing anyone to freely explore, download and use these scientific data. Since 2015, more than 30 billion records have been downloaded in more than 440k download events from the Data Portal and partner platforms like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and more than 1500 research papers have cited these data.

Natural history collections hold information we need to tackle fundamental scientific and societal challenges of our time. They include specimens collected over the last 200 years, a critical time period, during which humans have had a major impact on the distribution of biodiversity, radically affecting landscapes through increased consumption of natural resources, pollution and climate change. Digitisation unlocks this treasure trove so that everyone can access it.

Economic and Societal Value of Digitised Natural History Collections

Recently, in a world first, the Natural History Museum collaborated with the economic consultants Frontier Economics Ltd to explore the economic and societal value of digitising natural history collections and concluded that digitisation has the potential to see a tenfold return on investment, creating benefits in excess of £2 billion over 30 years. Frontier Economics Ltd have looked at the impact of collections data in five sectors: biodiversity conservation, invasive species, medicines discovery, agricultural research and development, and mineral exploration.

Dan Popov, Economist at Frontier Economics Ltd, says: ‘The Natural History Museum’s collection is a real treasure trove which, if made easily accessible to scientists all over the world through digitisation, has the potential to unlock ground-breaking research in any number of areas. We can’t be certain as to how this data will be used so have looked at the potential value that new research could create in just five areas, focusing on a relatively narrow set of outcomes. We find that the value at stake is extremely large, running into billions of pounds.’

The new analyses attempt to estimate the economic value of these benefits using a range of approaches, with the results in broad agreement that there are huge economic benefits to digitisation. This represents a compelling case for investment in museum digital infrastructure without which the many benefits will not be realised.

Professor Ken Norris, Head of the Life Sciences Department at the Natural History Museum says: 'This new analysis shows that the data locked up in our collections has significant societal and economic value, but we need investment to help us release it.’

Anyone in the world can explore, download and reuse data from the Data Portal for their own research, either through the web interface or the API. Upgrades are continuingly being made based on how people use the portal and over the next year the team will add a deep zoom feature that will transform the study of natural history, better supporting digital loans and allowing researchers to examine specimens in the collection remotely in greater detail.

Notes to editors

Natural History Media contact: Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5654 / 07799690151 Email: press@nhm.ac.uk

Economic benefits of digitisation report available here.

Images available to download here.

Access the Data Portal here.

The Natural History Museum is both a world-leading science research centre and the most-visited natural history museum in Europe. With a vision of a future in which both people and the planet thrive, it is uniquely positioned to be a powerful champion for balancing humanity’s needs with those of the natural world.

It is custodian of one of the world’s most important scientific collections comprising over 80 million specimens. The scale of this collection enables researchers from all over the world to document how species have and continue to respond to environmental changes - which is vital in helping predict what might happen in the future and informing future policies and plans to help the planet.

The Museum’s 300 scientists continue to represent one of the largest groups in the world studying and enabling research into every aspect of the natural world. Their science is contributing critical data to help the global fight to save the future of the planet from the major threats of climate change and biodiversity loss through to finding solutions such as the sustainable extraction of natural resources.

The Museum uses its enormous global reach and influence to meet its mission to create advocates for the planet - to inform, inspire and empower everyone to make a difference for nature. We welcome over five million visitors each year; our digital output reaches hundreds of thousands of people in over 200 countries each month and our touring exhibitions have been seen by around 30 million people in the last 10 years.