Many challenges face natural history collections today, including stagnation of collecting, consistent gaps in coverage, and reduced investment. To preserve the value of collections and revitalize collecting into the future, this project aims to increase coordination, collaboration, and infrastructure engagement for Norwegian university natural history museums. Over the two years of the project, we will engage with staff at the museums and various stakeholders and collectors outside academia to map gaps, redundancies, barriers, and untapped potential. From this we will build a a more unified Norwegian collecting community and write a national collecting strategy laying out the current state of collections, a shared vision for the future, and practical guidance on standardization and engagement with external partners. In addition, we will draw on the experience of international partners and better link Norwegian collections to international infrastructures and networks.
As of October 2026, we have run two surveys, one of staff working with the collections at all four museums, and one of external collectors and users of our museum specimens and data. We have also conducted workshops at each of the four museums. We plan to have a first draft of the collecting strategy early in 2027 and will then begin the process of stakeholder feedback to develop the final version.
