NATURHISTORISKA RIKSMUSEET

Their core work

The Swedish Museum of Natural History (Naturhistoriska riksmuseet) is Sweden's premier institution for natural science collections, housing millions of biological and geological specimens used for research in evolutionary biology, systematics, and Earth history. Their research teams work on phylogenetics, ancient DNA analysis, and population genomics to understand how species evolved and responded to past climate changes. They also play a key role in building Europe's digital infrastructure for scientific collections, contributing to the DiSSCo and SYNTHESYS networks that make natural history data accessible across borders. Their computational work applies Bayesian statistics and probabilistic programming to solve hard problems in evolutionary inference.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early H2020 period (2015–2018), the museum focused on training-oriented research in insect biosystematics (BIG4) and individual fellowship projects in evolutionary biology and geology. From 2019 onward, a clear shift emerged toward large-scale digital infrastructure for scientific collections (SYNTHESYS PLUS, DiSSCo Prepare) alongside computationally advanced evolutionary research using probabilistic programming and ancient DNA. This evolution reflects a museum transitioning from specimen-based research toward becoming a node in Europe's distributed digital research infrastructure.

Moving toward computational biology methods and pan-European digital infrastructure for natural history collections — expect future involvement in ESFRI roadmap projects and AI-driven biodiversity informatics.

How they like to work

Despite being a mid-sized research institution, they coordinate more often than they participate (4 coordinated vs 3 as participant), showing confidence in leading research agendas — particularly in fellowship-scale projects. Their 65 unique partners across 29 countries indicate a broad European network rather than a tight cluster of repeat collaborators. They are comfortable both leading focused MSCA fellowships and contributing to massive infrastructure consortia like DiSSCo.

A well-connected institution with 65 unique partners spanning 29 countries, reflecting deep integration into Europe's natural history research community. Their network breadth comes from participation in large infrastructure projects (SYNTHESYS PLUS, DiSSCo) that link natural history museums and collections across the continent.

What sets them apart

As one of Europe's major natural history museums, they sit at the intersection of physical specimen collections and digital research infrastructure — a combination few institutions can match. Their PhyPPL project demonstrates unusual computational sophistication for a museum, applying probabilistic programming and AI to evolutionary biology. For consortium builders, they offer both domain expertise in biodiversity science and access to irreplaceable specimen collections spanning centuries.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PhyPPL
  Unusually computational for a natural history museum — applied probabilistic programming and AI to phylogenetics, signaling the museum's move toward advanced computational methods.
• SYNTHESYS PLUS
  Part of the major European effort to unify access to natural science collections, with the museum's largest single funding allocation (EUR 375,609).
• BIG4
  Largest EC contribution (EUR 527,319) and a training network addressing the four biggest insect groups — connecting systematics, genetics, and informatics.