Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and educational innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all stages of their careers, they can provide a place-based window to focus on integration of science and discovery, as well as a locus for community engagement. At the same time, like a synthesis radio telescope, when joined together through emerging digital resources, the global community of museums (the 'Global Museum') is more than the sum of its parts, allowing insights and answers to diverse biological, environmental, and societal questions at the global scale, across eons of time, and spanning vast diversity across the Tree of Life. We argue that, whereas natural history collections and museums began with a focus on describing the diversity and peculiarities of species on Earth, they are now increasingly leveraged in new ways that significantly expand their impact and relevance. These new directions include the possibility to ask new, often interdisciplinary questions in basic and applied science, such as in biomimetic design, and by contributing to solutions to climate change, global health and food security challenges. As institutions, they have long been incubators for cutting-edge research in biology while simultaneously providing core infrastructure for research on present and future societal needs. Here we explore how the intersection between pressing issues in environmental and human health and rapid technological innovation have reinforced the relevance of museum collections. We do this by providing examples as food for thought for both the broader academic community and museum scientists on the evolving role of museums. We also identify challenges to the realization of the full potential of natural history collections and the Global Museum to science and society and discuss the critical need to grow these collections. We then focus on mapping and modelling of museum data (including place-based approaches and discovery), and explore the main projects, platforms and databases enabling this growth. Finally, we aim to improve relevant protocols for the long-term storage of specimens and tissues, ensuring proper connection with tomorrow's technologies and hence further increasing the relevance of natural history museums.

Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences Institute of Entomology České Budějovice Czechia

Biosystematics Group Wageningen University and Research Wageningen The Netherlands

Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm Sweden

Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre University of Gothenburg Göteborg Sweden

Department of Biology Lund University Lund Sweden

Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Gothenburg Göteborg Sweden

Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University Cambridge MA United States of America

Department of Science Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Richmond United Kingdom

Department of Zoology Gothenburg Natural History Museum Göteborg Sweden

Essig Museum of Entomology Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management University of California Berkeley Berkeley CA United States of America

Gothenburg Botanical Garden Göteborg Sweden

Gothenburg Centre for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg Göteborg Sweden

Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre University of Gothenburg Göteborg Sweden

Jackson School of Geosciences University of Texas at Austin Austin TX United States of America

Leibniz Institut für Evolutions und Biodiversitätsforschung Museum für Naturkunde Berlin Germany

Museu de História Natural e da Ciência Universidade do Porto Porto Portugal

Museum of Southwestern Biology Department of Biology University of New Mexico Albuquerque NM United States of America

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The colonial legacy of herbaria