University of Copenhagen

Overview

The Natural History Museum of Denmark is the principal museum of natural history in Denmark. The Museum is organised as an institute under the University of Copenhagen and was formed in 2004 with the merger of the Zoological Museum, the Geological Museum, the Botanical Museum and Central Library, and the Botanical Garden. The core activity of the Natural History Museum of Denmark comprises research, teaching, public engagement and conservation of the national natural history collections.

Collections Infrastructure

The Natural History Museum of Denmark houses more than 14 million specimens within geology, botany, and zoology, the latter including a considerable collection of Baltic amber with inclusions (mostly of insects), from more than 400 years of collecting around the world. New collections are added continuously. Living collections in the Botanical Garden include c. 10,000 species from around the world. As well as an extensive collection, the Museum manages several core research laboratories, with a wide range of services and purposes available.

Additional facilities include the Danish Bird Ringing Centre as well as a cryo bank.

Infrastructure available to Access users

DK-TAF provides excellent opportunities to visiting researchers who benefit from cross – disciplinary networking and access to both recent and historical samples. In addition to international research collaborations, DK-TAF plays important international roles, such as hosting the Secretariat of GBIF (www.gbif.org), the Danish national GBIF node, and DanBIF (www.danbif.dk)

The Natural History Museum of Denmark offers expertise and equipment for collections – based biological and geological research. Core laboratories include mass spectrometry isotope laboratories; scanning electron microscopy; algae cultivation labs; geobiology labs (anaerobic trace metal cycles); palaeontology labs; general sample preparation labs.

In 2019, DK-TAF's c. 35 scientists produced 150 highly diverse peer - reviewed publications and described 205 new species. More than 250 international publications were based on the Museum's collections. In 2019, about 200 guest researchers visited the Museum and used the collections for research. 300 loans were provided to researchers based in 50 countries.