A voice of authority on the natural world Strategic Plan 2011–16 The Natural History Museum is a scientific centre of global significance and one of the world’s leading visitor attractions for engagement with the natural world. The institution occupies two museum sites in South Kensington, London, and Tring in Hertfordshire plus storage facilities in Wandsworth, south London. Our vision is what we aspire to To advance our knowledge of the natural world, inspiring better care of our planet
Our positioning is the way we intend to be seen A voice of authority on the natural world Our mission is a description of why we are here and what we do To maintain and develop our collections, and use them to promote the discovery, understanding, responsible use and enjoyment of the natural world ‘The Natural History Museum has an exciting future, but also a challenging one. We know that excellence will not be enough – we must be seen to deliver value.
More than ever, we will need the continuing support of government, grant-awarding bodies and our many loyal patrons and supporters. As a body of people working together we will need to recognise and capitalise on new opportunities to generate income and build long and loyal relationships. I want everyone here to be involved in making that future happen. ’ Dr Michael Dixon, Director Executive Summary The world’s leading natural history museum The Museum has just completed one of the most successful periods in its history.
However, in response to the difficult economic climate, we have brought forward our five-year Strategic Plan by one year to refocus our objectives in the context of changes in political priorities and constraints on public funding. This Strategic Plan sets out the objectives of the Museum to 2016, which are grouped under three cross-cutting strategic themes that achieve our vision: • developing knowledge of the natural world, our strategy for supporting innovation and ideas • inspiring a sustained engagement with the natural world, our strategy for engaging with our stakeholders managing resources; investing in infrastructure, our strategy for the best use of our assets for the long-term future of the Museum We must deliver all these objectives to be successful. In most cases, delivery of the objectives depends on internal collaboration of teams across operational lines and external collaboration with trusted partners. The diagram below illustrates how teams from across the Museum can all be involved to varying levels with one project or activity. It also recognises that Corporate Services is a constant, the backbone on which we all rely.
Our vision is that, by 2016, we will be widely acknowledged as the world’s leading natural history museum, valued by all our stakeholders as a major scientific research institution and a centre for innovative public engagement with science and the natural world through our collections and expertise. We will measure our success by the quality, impact and relevance of our research, our reputation in leading international collaborations for research, collections management and knowledge transfer, innovation and impact of our public engagement activities, and the perception of us by our key stakeholders.
The Museum will continue to be a frontline service that contributes to the Government’s priorities and to society as a whole. Government will appreciate and acknowledge the breadth, depth and relevance of the work we do and understand the public value derived from this. Looking forward, we will need to instigate change within our organisation to support and encourage creativity and innovation, to become more agile and responsive to opportunities, to do more of our work in partnership with others and to deliver greater impact and better value for money.
We have a committed team that will continue to drive our success and achieve our vision. The world’s leading natural history museum By 2016, we will be widely acknowledged as the world’s leading natural history museum, valued by all our stakeholders as a major scientific research institution and a centre for innovative public engagement with science and the natural world through our collections and expertise. The Museum will continue to be a frontline service that contributes to the Government’s priorities and to society as a whole.
Government will appreciate and acknowledge the breadth, depth and relevance of the work we do and understand the public value derived from this. Our people will be one professional, versatile, efficient and effective team that works together as One Museum towards a shared vision of the future. They will be positive advocates for our organisation, taking pride in the contribution they make to our success. Our collections will be valued as a major science infrastructure.
We will champion the value of natural history collections, nationally and internationally, by building a network of museums, amateur experts, universities and other partners. Our scientific research will more effectively underpin applied sciences in order to respond to emerging challenges facing the planet. The global science community will admire the quantity and quality of our scientific outputs and the relevance of the science we undertake. Our visitors will have a transformational experience and their visits will be enjoyable and inspiring.
More people will develop lasting relationships with the Museum and its public-facing activities. Our approach to public engagement will be dynamic, responding to the ways people exchange knowledge and ideas. Through partnership and commissioning, we will develop richer content and make it available across a wider range of media. We will be recognised as a leading provider of out-of classroom education in natural sciences, inspiring a new generation to be interested in science. We will be a leading source of trusted information on the natural world, used by more people than ever before.
The media will use us as an informed, objective and approachable organisation on the topics that comprise our intellectual territory. We will increase our global standing by engaging in strategic partnerships for long-term impact and contribute actively to public diplomacy. We will be integrated into a network of UK and European science infrastructures. We will be respected for taking leadership positions in international networks of relevance to our intellectual territory. We will be a commercially successful and astute organisation that can deliver ambitious and impressive projects for the wider public good.
Our supporters will trust us to spend their money wisely and see great value in their association with us. We will measure our success by the quality, impact and relevance of our research, our reputation in leading international collaborations for research, collections management and knowledge transfer, innovation and impact of our public engagement activities, and the perception of us by our key stakeholders. Our challenges We are a museum with global value, engagement and experience, a brand with a broad reach and large-scale connection with millions of people worldwide.
Our continuing challenge is to integrate our diverse skills and strengths with those of our partners around the world to meet the needs of the public, governments, scientists, conservationists and others. The resource of 70 million biological, fossil and mineralogical specimens that the Museum cares for is an astonishing and extremely important inventory of the natural world, past as well as present. The library of natural history publications, archives and artworks is probably the most extensive of its kind anywhere in the world.
Our collection is a major part of an international network of scientific collections that underpin the life and earth sciences as information and research resources. There is rapidly growing interest in the US and EU in co-ordinated development of and access to collections to respond to new scientific and policy needs: we will continue to play a major part in these collaborations. We are developing new collections and facilities to support the most rapidly developing molecular sciences that are generating new techniques and value.
We are collaborating on global access to digitised collections for faster and wider access. We are a world-class institution that aims to document biological and geological diversity and to understand the processes that generate such diversity. This knowledge and understanding is needed to address major challenges of our times: biodiversity loss, the impact of climate change, sustainable use of natural resources, food security and the spread of parasitic diseases. There is an increasing need to combine our fundamental science expertise with more responsive science to meet broader policy and societal needs.
We develop, use and provide access to our world-class research collection of specimens, associated data and staff expertise for the benefit of the UK and society globally. We are a leading provider of knowledge on the diversity of the natural world and provide a critical research infrastructure for the UK and global community. Our distinctive expertise and information resource in biological diversity is at the species level. This allows us, in collaboration with others, to extend our scope up to the ecosystem or down to the genetic levels of diversity.
We work with science policy-makers, universities, government agencies, international organisations, community groups and many others in focusing our science where it is most needed. We provide both fundamental research that advances understanding and applied solutions to practical concerns through collaboration and consultancy. Science funding is increasingly competitive in terms of quality and relevance: we aim to continue our success in increasing our research funded from the UK and EU and will ensure that our research is of the highest quality.
That the Museum is able to embody in one organisation the power of a research institute and large-scale public engagement gives us enormous opportunity, reach and influence that few institutions have. It also brings with it challenges as we strive to remain competitive in the many markets in which we operate. Engagement with the public is a critical part of science, developing in some areas into public participation in science and science policy, recognised as science in society. Our work will continue to be innovative in developing this part of our scientists’ work.
Equally, science in education from the earliest stages to postgraduate study is an active theme in public policy: we will continue to deliver programmes to respond to this. New forms of communication have led to changing expectations of the visitor experience. There is now an expectation to be able to personalise, communicate and share the experiences with others. As a result, the role of the visitor has shifted to that of more active participant. To meet these changes and new requirements, we will develop and sustain mechanisms for our udience to become involved, share the experience and participate across our activities. We will develop multi-dimensional experiences, delivered over multiple channels. We will give audiences both broad access to our information and work through our galleries, programmes and digital environments, and active individual contact with science. We will identify the needs and interests of these many stakeholders to ensure we plan and deliver effectively, and anticipate emerging demand. Building on our success
The Museum has just completed one of the most successful periods in its history. Visitor numbers have increased dramatically since the re-introduction of free admission in 2001 and in response to the major improvements we have made to our public offer. We have seen impressive growth in the attendance of school-age children as our educational work has been refocused and enhanced. We have significantly improved our scientific performance, producing more papers of higher quality and relevance and winning greater amounts of external grant funding.
We have achieved further improvement in the storage conditions of our collections and have focused hard on demonstrating more actively to the public the value of our scientific work. Our trading activities are performing well after significant investment and, buoyed by a successful fundraising campaign for the Darwin Centre, we are seeing greater and more frequent donations from charitable and private sources. Over the past three years the Museum has developed its brand, redefined its intellectual territory and enhanced its positioning by promoting its scientific work to ensure it is valued by all its stakeholders.
Delivering our vision of the future will require us to continue to engage effectively with our major stakeholders and incrementally improve their perceptions of us. The Museum’s influence is increasing and its plans ambitious as it enters a challenging, but exciting, new chapter in its development. In response to the difficult economic climate, the Museum has brought forward its five-year Strategic Plan by one year to refocus its objectives in the context of changes in political priorities and constraints on public funding. This Strategic Plan sets out the objectives of the Museum over the period to 2016.
It will be accompanied by a delivery plan that sets out the actions we will take to achieve these objectives, and which we will submit annually to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in accordance with our funding agreement. How we deliver the Strategic Plan is a dynamic process. The delivery plan will evolve in response to the changing external landscape and as a result of the choices we will make in the future, such as the scale and focus of our digital capability or the scope of our involvement with other museums throughout the UK and around the world.
Looking forward, we will need to instigate change within our organisation to support and encourage creativity and innovation, to become more agile and responsive to opportunities, to do more of our work in partnership with others and to deliver greater impact and better value for money. We have a committed team that will continue to drive our success and achieve our vision. Achieving our 2016 vision Our main priorities for the period of this Strategic Plan are grouped below under three cross-cutting strategic themes that achieve our vision.
We must deliver all of them to be successful. In most cases delivery of the objectives depends on internal collaboration of teams across operational lines and external collaboration with trusted partners. The strategic themes acknowledge the importance of innovation and ideas: Developing knowledge of the natural world, of engagement with our stakeholders: Inspiring a sustained engagement with the natural world and stewardship of our assets for the long-term future of the Museum: Managing resources; investing in infrastructure.
Developing knowledge of the natural world This Museum seeks to answer major questions about the natural world by pursuing world-class collaborative scientific research, by developing and giving broad access to one of the world’s best natural science collections and by innovating in engagement strategies to enable people to share, manage, generate, interpret and understand new knowledge. Objectives: 1. To develop, refine and care for the collection and related information, balancing current needs and future interests A significant proportion of our collection is stored to world-class standards – we will improve other collections storage for both our existing holdings and new types of collection. We will continue to develop the collection as a summary of diversity to meet research needs. We will also provide national and international leadership in the management of scientific collections through collaboration and promote professional development. 1. To provide access to our collection and information We will give access to a wide range of researchers from across the world to enable them to address major issues facing society such as biodiversity loss, food security, emerging diseases, the impact of climate change and sustainable exploitation of natural resources. We will continue to provide public access to the collection, particularly through the Darwin Centre, and will provide collaborative leadership to develop databasing and digitisation for our collections to give greater access and benefits to scientists and other users.
We will implement a new strategy for the future of our Library. 1. 3 To carry out internationally competitive and relevant research on biological and geological diversity, related to our collection Within our Research Framework, which defines major cross-disciplinary themes, we will develop our internationally competitive scientific research. We will adopt a strategic approach to taxonomic expertise to meet national and other societal needs and will develop research collaborations and expert centres o increase the scope and relevance of our work. 1. 4 To increase the quality and international impact of our research and to establish a position of leadership in our field of science We will further develop the use of peer-reviewed research planning and performance management and make appointments of leading researchers to strategic areas. We will continue to develop our successful approach to external grant funding to expand mission-related research and ensure relevance to wider scientific and policy interests. 1. To develop and exploit new technologies in biological and geological diversity The Museum continues to be at the forefront of the use of new technology for discovery and diagnostics for both life and earth sciences. We are a significant contributor to web-based taxonomy and biodiversity informatics via major international projects, but we will demonstrate a greater level of leadership by developing a world-class collaborative environment for e-science. We will ensure that our core technology platform remains at an international level for analytical facilities and imaging. . 6 To develop and distribute impactful and relevant content that integrates expertise from across the Museum and establishes a position of leadership on certain subjects We seek excellence in engaging the public with science. We will develop a strategic cross-Museum approach to building on and adding value to our content. We will facilitate contribution and participation by the public in building that content and we will develop content with and link output to external, trusted providers to maximise its scope and reach.
We will exploit technology and innovate in the use of tools and platforms to maximise the value of our knowledge and increase its accessibility for all our audiences. Our intellectual framework, though focussed on the Museum’s particular expertise in the science of biological and geological diversity, will go beyond our own research and provide new insights into a wider world of natural sciences that addresses the broad range of issues and interests of society.
Inspiring a sustained engagement with the natural world This Museum aims to transform people’s lives in some way. Everyone who works or volunteers at the Museum is involved in making this happen. People use the collections, knowledge, staff and space to pursue their own journeys. It is essential we continue to create a positive, memorable impact for those people, to encourage a more frequent interaction with us and the natural world throughout their lives.
We will provide an inspiring learning resource, specialising in science education. We will foster the development of knowledge and understanding of the natural world by empowering people to understand and act on the implications of natural science for their daily lives, encouraging learners to progress further in science through formal and informal learning and contributing to the development of the next generation of scientists. Objectives: 2. To develop national and international capacity in diversity sciences and development of scientific collections We will continue to offer a broad range of capacity building from informal training to formal research training at masters, doctoral and post-doctoral levels to facilitate collaboration with the wider research community and enable a vibrant international student body to contribute to our mission. We will further develop training for peer institutions and amateur specialists in the UK and internationally, integrating where possible with research and collections collaboration and public engagement. 2. To facilitate meaningful engagement with issues of science and society, empowering people for action and change We will provide world-class public engagement to increase the level and frequency of participation, dialogue and interest for people in the Museum and virtually, making a real impact on their understanding of and interaction with science and the natural world. We aim to facilitate broad participation across a wide range of media with natural science content, stimulating debate and discussion, inspiring lifelong commitment to the natural world, providing people with the tools and capacity to act.
We will achieve this through our vibrant and immersive programme of activities that exploit innovations in communication tools and active participation in science by different audiences. We will maximise the opportunities offered by the Darwin Centre to immerse people in our science. 2. 3 To create learning opportunities, increasing scientific literacy We aim to increase scientific literacy and inspire the next generation of scientists through formal and informal interactions including our schools programme and galleries.
Drawing on our strength as a research institution, we will provide a unique and personalised experience for learners, including our staff, through engagement with real science, scientists and specimens. We will actively engage with the development of the National Curriculum to ensure it is fit for purpose based on our front-line experience in natural science education, and our offer for school science will lead the field for out-of-classroom learning in natural sciences.
We will provide world-class facilities for our school groups, reach more learners through online educational materials and continue to support and expand the successful Real World Science partnership. To assess our impact we will work with academic partners to develop a research programme to develop the methodology and robust systems necessary to measure our learning success and impact through data collection, profiling and evaluation. 2. To provide evidence to support public policy development in areas relevant to our mission To fulfil our ambition to be seen as a voice of authority on the natural world, we will further develop our engagement with policy makers, providing evidence from our scientific work and public engagement activities to support public policy development. Managing resources; investing in infrastructure Our people will work in an environment where they can exercise their potential and harmonise with challenges presented by change.
A culture of crossteam collaboration based on common goals will be fostered to transcend silo-working. This will be facilitated by a fit for purpose organisational structure that clarifies relationships and serves the strategic objectives. Our people strategy will recognise and realise the benefits of having a committed and capable workforce, focussed on achieving our vision. Our service functions need to be aligned so as to provide appropriate support that delivers value for money and enables us to reduce the administrative burden to deliver this Strategic Plan.
In an environment of constrained public funding, we plan to increase our self-generated income. This is key to providing a rich, varied high-quality public offer, to investing in our estate and to continuing to do science. We will need to invest in systems to make us more efficient and to work more closely together to recognise and capitalise on opportunities. Objectives: 3. 1 To develop a professional, versatile and capable team Good management and a motivated and talented workforce are key to the Museum’s vision. We are committed to developing skills and improving how work gets done across the organisation.
Through our development programmes we will ensure that people get the right support, our managers are skilled and able to motivate, coach and lead. People will be supported by effective processes and an appropriate organisational structure. 3. 2 To provide financial stability and viability We will develop a plan by April 2012 to accommodate reduced public funding over the Comprehensive Spending Review period. The Museum has a mixed economy of income. This is designed to both increase our resilience to variations in public funding and to fund growth of the organisation.
We will therefore seek to secure more funding through grant income and donations and become more profitable through our commercial activities. Crucial to the health and vibrancy of the Museum are the relationships we cultivate and sustain with individuals, trusts, foundations and companies. We will improve our performance in developing and retaining these relationships, ensuring that we recognise and respond to their needs. We will provide efficient and effective internal services by increasing the use of centralised contracts and developing, where possible, shared and joint procurement of services.
We will streamline management support systems within HR and Finance and instigate service level agreements. 3. 3 To invest in core digital and estate infrastructure We will continue to address the significant backlog of maintenance issues inherent to our estate. We will invest in our IT infrastructure and digital technologies to underpin the potential of our assets. We will invest capital in progressing the Masterplan Development Framework, which takes a long-term view of the development of the physical estate. . 4 To position the Museum as a sustainable organisation We aim to inspire better care of our planet. We must, therefore, continue to act responsibly with regard to our own environmental impacts. We will continue to seek to minimise carbon emissions associated with our venues, activities and related transport, and consistently look at ways to buy goods from sustainable sources, reduce waste, increase reuse and recycling of materials and become more efficient at using our resources. Corporate planning process
The diagram below illustrates the Museum’s corporate planning model and how forward job plans relate to the delivery of our vision. The cycle of planning is continuous, but follows this order of activities: [pic] The Natural History Museum Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD 020 7942 5000 Natural History Museum at Tring The Walter Rothschild building Akeman Street Tring Herts HP23 6AP 020 7942 6171 www. nhm. ac. uk We’re on nature’s side. We support the environment by printing on paper that is made from 100 per cent post-consumer waste, using vegetable inks by a carbon-neutral printing company.
DS3351 ———————– Corporate Services Science Public Engagement Marketing exhibitions Science Uncovered event Collections management Forward Job Plans Departmental Plans and Museum Programmes Annual Delivery Plan Strategic Plan 2011-16 Vision Horizon-scanning External intelligence Monitoring Progress reporting, including against performance indicators Departmental planning and delivery Departmental Plans Financial planning Budget Strategic planning Annual Delivery Plan in line with Strategic Plan, setting goals and workstreams for year
