A museum for everyone
At the Natural History Museum, we aspire to be an open and inclusive meeting place. Our goal is to provide positive experiences, learning opportunities, wonder, and inspiration for everyone, regardless of who they are.
Diversity, equality and inclusion
Diversity, equality and inclusion are core values that influence every aspect of our work. We aim to be welcoming and inclusive in everything we do so that every visitor feels welcome and finds our exhibits and activities relevant. Our goal is to reach a wide audience and we actively work to increase diversity among both our visitors and staff.
But what do we really mean by equality, inclusion, and diversity?
Diversity
Diversity is about the differences among people in terms of characteristics, qualities, skills, experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. Promoting diversity means recognizing these differences and meeting people with respect, curiosity, and openness. It’s about valuing diversity as an enrichment and a resource.
Equality
Equality is about equal value, equal rights, and equal opportunities. Promoting equality involves preventing all forms of discrimination based on gender, pregnancy, parental leave, caregiving responsibilities, ethnicity, religion, beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and age.
Inclusion
Inclusion is about ensuring equal opportunities for participation and creating an environment where everyone feels included and valued. This involves removing barriers to participation and ensuring accessibility and accommodation so that everyone can participate on equal terms.
A sustainable and responsible museum
Our goal is to operate in a sustainable and responsible manner that contributes to positive development for society, nature, and people. Through our active efforts in diversity, equality and inclusion we aim to help build a safer, more tolerant, fairer, and more inclusive society for future generations.
Learn more about how we work on sustainability (In Norwegian)
Accessibility
Ensuring equal access to the museum and our activities is a crucial part of our inclusion efforts. We want the museum and our activities to be accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. While being heritage-listed presents unique challenges, we are committed to ongoing improvements to support accessibility to our museum buildlings.
To help you better plan your visit, we have created a webpage with practical information on accessibility and accommodations.
Children and families
Are you planning a visit to the museum with children? Find practical information and tips on the highlights that are popular in our exhibits.
Nuanced and ethical education
We strive to share knowledge about natural heritage and natural history collections in a way that promotes equality. This includes acknowledging the influence of historically discriminatory beliefs in the field of natural science and being mindful of ethical concerns related to the acquisition and representation of collection items. We recognise that many natural history objects collected in the past were acquired without proper regard for their natural and cultural contexts and that the contributions of Indigenous and Local Peoples to biodiversity and natural history collections are often not properly acknowledged in the collection data. Although we are committed to preserving the original data of our collections to ensure historical accuracy and support research, we aim to adhere to the FAIR and CARE principles when acquiring new material for our collections. In addition, we continuously evaluate and maintain ethical standards in our exhibitions.
As part of our commitment to inclusivity, we invite feedback and questions about our indoor and outdoor exhibitions, website, and databases. This helps us create a more informed and ethically conscious educational environment.
How do we work with diversity, equality, and inclusion at the museum?
Achieving equality, inclusion, and diversity requires active effort; it does not happen on its own. That is why it is part of our strategic work at the museum. To ensure we approach this systematically and effectively, we have developed an action plan with specific initiatives. This plan will help us become a more inclusive museum - for our visitors, as well as for our staff and students. It aims to foster an organizational culture that is inclusive, diverse, and fair, rooted in equal value and a sense of community.
Our focus areas
Competence building
Our museum staff will receive enhanced training on diversity, equality and inclusion.
Leadership
Leaders at the museum will actively participate in the efforts related to diversity, equality and inclusion. They will integrate these principles into their leadership roles and in supervising personnel.
Diversity
We aim to increase diversity and gender balance among our staff through equitable recruitment and career support practices. We seek employees with a wide range of skills, experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives to enrich and elevate the quality of our work.
Work environment
We will strengthen efforts to promote an open and inclusive work culture free from harassment and build effective teams.
Audience
We will consider diverstiy, equality and inclusion in the planning, design, and implementation of our exhibitions and activities, ensuring that our audience and the broader community perceive us as an inclusive museum