Scientific Curation of Natural History Collections
PhD School at the Faculty of SCIENCE at University of Copenhagen
This is a specialised course where 50% of the seats are reserved to PhD students enrolled at the Faculty of SCIENCE at UCPH and 50% of the seats are reserved to other applicants. Seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and according to the applicable rules.
Anyone can apply for the course, but if you are not a PhD student at a Danish university (except CBS), you will be placed on the waiting list until enrollment deadline. After the enrollment deadline, available seats will be allocated to applicants on the waiting list.
Aim and Content
The aim is to offer PhD students at the Science Faculty knowledge, skills and an understanding of the role of scientific curators as well as both practical and theoretical competences for performing scientific curation and managing on natural history collections.
Natural History collections represent national and international heritage and are actively used for research, education and communication. In addition to ensuring access to collections and their metadata for international researchers and society, scientific curators oversee the strategic management and development of the collections. In this course, we open the treasure chest and introduce you to all the different aspects and possibilities of 21st century natural history collections.
The natural history collections of the Natural History Museum Denmark are one of the oldest and largest in the World, with more than 14 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils and rocks, representing over 400 years of global fieldwork and collection history. The Botanical Garden of the Museum includes over 8.000 living plant species from all over the World as well as a conservation seed bank.
Natural history collections serve as repositories documenting the distribution of organisms across time and space, essentially acting as a time capsule. At the same time, collections, both living and preserved, are an immense source of big data for a wide range of research applications from the core discipline of taxonomy to testing evolutionary relationships, drivers of biodiversity, and societal challenges including the current climate and biodiversity crisis.
The course includes the following themes:
• General collection management from field expeditions to the collections or garden. From fieldwork planning and ethical considerations, international collaboration and guidelines to preservation, identification, curation, registration and open access.
• Strategic development of collections including identification of priority areas for new collecting and exchange with other museums and gardens as well as improving identifications and metadata.
• Meta-curation of collections across institutions
• Digitization and imaging of collections
• Challenges and opportunities of using public databases such as GBIF for research and inventories.
• Type specimens as the fundamental basis of a species name, species circumscriptions, and formal description of a new species.
• Cultural history of collections.
• Collection based research across time, space and species including changes in phenology, distribution, invasive species and endangered species.
• Use of collections to address societal challenges including conservation.
• Genomic work with historical collections and challenges related to ancient DNA.
• Communicating collections through exhibitions, social media, popular engagement and citizen science.
• Fund raising for collections and research projects.
Learning outcomes
Intended learning outcome for the students who complete the course:
Knowledge:
• Basic understanding of curatorial tasks and considerations related to preserve, develop, and communicate natural history collections.
• Basic understanding of the taxonomic hierarchy, species concepts, taxonomical nomenclature, typification and species description.
• Understand and describe the cultural, historical and scientific value of natural history collections and their metadata.
• Identify and communicate the potential of collections for addressing fundamental science questions and societal challenges to diverse audiences.
• Assess research and exhibition potentials of the collections.
• Identify initiatives to make the collections more accessible and of use to the broader public.
Skills:
• Responsible and sustainable handling of collections and their metadata.
• Outline strategy, development, and management plans for collections.
• Describe examples of collection-based research and the use of collections to address societal challenges.
• Design experiments to investigate collection-based research questions.
• Communicate the cultural and scientific value of natural history collections.
Competences:
• Assess the values, strengths, weaknesses and risks of natural history collections and suggest strategic priorities for collection development.
• Describe collection management needs in general terms and prepare guidelines for the scientific curation of collections.
• Extract, present, and critically discuss in detail the objectives, methods and results of scientific articles about collection-based research.
• Quality assessment of metadata and cleaning of database output for use in research or inventories.
• Outline future research and prepare funding proposals.
• Identify communication potential of collections and prepare communication plans and activities.
• Present their own work (in oral and written form) at a level approaching the scientific standard.
• Identify interdisciplinary collaboration potentials.
• Create synergy between collections, research, education and public engagement.
Target Group
Our main target group is PhD students at NHMD as well as closest departments at the Science Faculty: IGN and BIO. We expect the course will also attract students from all across Science and we will advertise it internationally as we know there is a huge interest in this course from our international museum and university partners. The course is intended as an obligatory introduction to collections curation for PhD students at NHMD as a basis for the PhD School of Science requirement of duty hours.
Recommended Academic Qualifications
Basic knowledge of organismal biology and/or geology, the taxonomic hierarchy, species concepts, phylogeny, microscopy and DNA work is recommended.
Research Area
Curation, Taxonomy, Systematics, Botany, Zoology, Geology, Palaeontology and Digital Sciences
Teaching and Learning Methods
The course is based on actively working with the museum’s natural history collections and consists of a mixture of lectures, research presentations from museum staff, hands-on work in the collections, project work, and communication/public engagement activities. During the course students work together on selected projects on a part of the collections. All projects include identifying strategic priority areas, making action plans for improving the value and use of a part of the collection, writing a simple grant application and communication plan, and actively communicating a story or aspect of the collections to a public audience. A labwork component may be included depending on interest of the course participants.
Type of Assessment
The students will hand in a 5-page assignment which will be either a collection policy, strategy or a funding application aimed at attracting external funding for developing a curatorial area.
Literature
Will be provided prior to the course
Course coordinator
Professor Anders P. Tøttrup, aptottrup@snm.ku.dk
Guest Lecturers
Add information on the guest lecturers, including affiliated institution and their contribution to the course
Dates
2-20 March 2026
Teaching will occur 2 - 13 March 2026
Hand-in assignment 16 - 20 March 2026
Expected frequency
The course will run annually.
Course location
The course will mainly run from the Zoological Museum Building, Universitetsparken 15, but teaching will also take place on several other of the museum addresses
Requirements for signing up
With registration we ask for ½-1 page letter stating taxonomic research area and interest.
Please send this to: Professor Anders P. Tøttrup, aptottrup@snm.ku.dk
Course fee
• Participant fee: 0 DKK
• PhD student enrolled at SCIENCE: 0 DKK
• PhD student from Danish PhD school Open market: 0 DKK
• PhD student from Danish PhD school not Open market: 6000 DKK
• PhD student from foreign university: 6000 DKK
• Master's student from Danish university: 0 DKK
• Master's student from foreign university: 6000 DKK
• Non-PhD student employed at a university (e.g., postdocs): 6000 DKK
• Non-PhD student not employed at a university (e.g., from a private company): 16.800 DKK
Cancellation policy
• Cancellations made up to two weeks before the course starts are free of charge.
• Cancellations made less than two weeks before the course starts will be charged a fee of DKK 3.000
• Participants with less than 80% attendance cannot pass the course and will be charged a fee of DKK 5.000
• No-show will result in a fee of DKK 5.000
• Participants who fail to hand in any mandatory exams or assignments cannot pass the course and will be charged a fee of DKK 5.000
Course fee and participant fee
PhD courses offered at the Faculty of SCIENCE have course fees corresponding to different participant types.
In addition to the course fee, there might also be a participant fee.
If the course has a participant fee, this will apply to all participants regardless of participant
type - and in addition to the course fee.