Natural history museums: Differentiate and lead, or conform and follow?

Mass extinction is an opportunity for natural history museums to differentiate themselves as world leaders in species exploration, systematics, and documenting evolutionary history

As a systematist, it' is clear to me what natural history museums should be doing—but are not doing nearly enough of.  Instead of being centers for species exploration and advancing the phylogenetic classification of life, they are variously engaged in the same kinds of science as countless universities, research institutes and government agencies—such as ecology, conservation, and aspects of molecular genetics beyond the important application of molecular data to systematic biology research—and in what might be described as infotainment, using exhibit halls to parrot headlines made elsewhere.  Such research and public education activities neither make use of, nor improve, the information content of the collections which differentiate museums.

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History. The NMNH fish collections house about four million specimens representing 20,000 (or about 71%) of validly described fish species worldwide, and is a critically important research resource for NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, Smithsonian systematists, and ichthyologists around the globe. Source: https:/celebrating200years.noaa.gov/datasets/fishcollection/image3.html.

As museums dilute their status as centers for systematic biology research and species exploration, it is clear that their leaders see them as something else. So, I decided to look up a few mission statements to see what museums think, or at least say, they are doing instead of collections-based research and outreach.  Here are nine such statements:

Our mission is to create advocates for the planet—The Natural History Museum, London

Understanding the natural world and our place in it—Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research and education—knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe—American Museum of Natural History

The institution’s ultimate goal is (to) step up to help to end the extinction crisis and contribute to creating a world where nature is protected, valued by all and managed sustainably—Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Our Manifesto for Change 2021-2030

…to make knowledge and information about natural and cultural diversity accessible to everyone and help all citizens understand more clearly the world around them—Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris

Our mission is to discover and describe life and earth—with people, through dialogue—Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin

Our brand embodies the forward-thinking scientific leader we’ve always been and the work we do every day.  Fighting climate change.  Preserving biodiversity.  Celebrating cultures. Championing science and taking action—Field Museum of Natural History, Our Mission: A Commitment to Earth’s Future

…a leading natural history museum dedicated to understanding the natural world and inspiring everyone to care for it—The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University

To discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life—Missouri Botanical Garden

Do these mission statements have anything in common?  In general, I think they do.  The statements are broad and somewhat vague.  This is to be expected for reasons of self-preservation; a too narrowly circumscribed mission might actually be successfully accomplished, putting the institution out of business.  The mission statements are, appropriately, aspirational, challenging the institution and its followers to reach for high goals.  And they seek to project relevance, tying the institution to major issues facing society such as conservation and sustainability.  While this is smart, it would be smarter still to make clear the special role that museums can play in addressing these issues by tapping (and adding to) the vast information content of collections.  Berlin and Paris come closest to statements projecting systematics, but all require generous interpretation to clearly do so, and, curiously, none of the statements explicitly mention collections which is what sets them apart from hundreds of other institutions.  Of course, collections may be understood as implicitly important to the mission statements; but I fear that in some cases statements signal something worse, a purposeful distancing of mission from collections.  Considering trends in hiring, separation of curation from research, exhibit topics, rate of collection growth, and staff research projects in many museums, there is most definitely reason for concern.

Acknowledging the benefits of broad mission statements, I nonetheless find the lack of focus disturbing.  It is focus on particular aspects of the natural world, such as what species exist, how they are related, the sequence of character transformations and divergence through evolutionary history, and how species can be classified to reflect relationships, that potentially differentiates collections-based institutions from research universities, institutes, and organizations having no collections.  It is possible to keep the lofty missions as stated and focus on areas of science where museums can make contributions uniquely, or uniquely well, by virtue of collections in combination with systematics expertise.

Another commonality among natural history museums is size.  Even the largest have far fewer PhD-level experts than a major university.  A university with hundreds of biology faculty can legitimately project expertise in a wide array of disciplines.  In attempting to do the same, natural history museums risk becoming the poster child for the old adage ‘jack of all trades, and master of none’.  The choice facing museums is clear.  They may either remain unfocused and content with also-ran status in a crowded field.  Or, they can focus, take advantage of their collections, and be undisputed world leaders in a few fundamentally important areas.

The trend in the 20^th century was clearly the former.  The lack of clarity of vision, and absence of courage of purpose, have contributed mightily to the decline in respect and support for systematic biology and slowed the growth of collections at a time of accelerated extinction. As the sixth mass extinction takes form, the world urgently and desperately needs exactly the kind of expertise, focus and leadership which natural history museums provided before they decided to reinvent themselves in the image of broader, and more popular, areas of science.  The lack of focus on species exploration and classification, and absence of ambitious programs to expand and develop collections as a reflection of species diversity, have resulted in an erosion of their former uniqueness among institutions.  Their independent relevance is much less obvious today, in spite of soaring rhetoric.

Natural history museums face the greatest challenges in their history—and the greatest opportunities.  They are called upon to do what institutions without collections cannot, to be science and society’s collective memory of life on our planet before a mass extinction.  Facing this enormous challenge will require laser-like focus of every resource at their disposal, but in so doing museums will rise above a crowded field of research institutions to distinguish themselves as indispensable and uniquely important leaders.  They have the opportunity to be the flagship institutions in one of the greatest scientific undertakings of all time: exploring and understanding the diversity and history of the millions of life forms inhabiting the only biologically diverse planet in the known universe.

At the current rate of extinction, little time remains for a planetary-scale species inventory.  As keepers of the world’s great collections, these museums alone bear the burden to rise to this challenge.  This is not a time for grandiose words, but grandiose actions.  This is not a time to mimic other institutions, but to accept the challenge of leadership.  It is not a time to follow fads and the easy path to grant funds, but for museums to create their own opportunities by teaching the world what must be done in the face of mass extinction.

Museums do have a critically important role in facing the great environmental challenges, but it is a role different from those of all other institutions.  They alone can explore and create baseline knowledge of our planet’s species at the close of the Holocene, document the diverse attributes of species, and deepen our understanding of biodiversity and evolutionary history of which we are part. 

Museums can be the solution to some of the most fundamental aspects of the extinction crisis or they can, by remaining unfocused, be part of the problem.  Science, history, and the future of our planet are calling these special institutions, entrusted with evidence of species diversity in the form of collections, to differentiate themselves and become leaders rather than also-rans.  The time for action is short, so whether the necessary vision, focus and courage can be mustered in time by the museum and systematics communities will soon be known.  So far, mission statements give little comfort that we are moving in the right direction.