Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle

Mission & Vision

For over four centuries, the French National Museum of Natural History has stood at the crossroads of science, culture, and the natural world. Its mission is to advance knowledge and understanding of nature, and to explore the evolving relationship between humans and nature.

Today, the Museum is one of the world’s leading centers of natural history research, home to 68 million specimens spanning the living world, geology, mineralogy, and even extraterrestrial matter, alongside artifacts documenting humankind’s history and cultural diversity. Its work extends across twelve sites in France, including the iconic Jardin des Plantes in the heart of Paris, along with zoological parks, botanical gardens, galleries, and research libraries that together welcome over 8 million visitors each year, making the Museum one of Paris’s most visited cultural institutions.

Rooted in four centuries of discovery, the Museum remains firmly oriented toward the future, safeguarding scientific and cultural heritage while advancing research that helps societies around the world understand and protect life on Earth.

Actions Led

The Museum’s actions are organized around five key missions:

• Research: The Museum studies the Earth and life from their origins to the present day, playing a unique role in global research on biodiversity, geodiversity, and the history of humankind, including a comprehensive inventory of the world’s living species.
• Enhancing, Enriching, and Conserving the Collections: As a living library of the natural world, the Museum safeguards one of the three greatest collections of natural history on Earth, unique in scope, continually enriching and conserving it while making it accessible through its museums, galleries, and digitized archives.
• Teaching and Training: A founding mission since the Museum’s creation, its teaching programs reach learners at every level, from schoolchildren to doctoral students, as well as professionals and companies.
• Disseminating Knowledge: Since its founding, the Museum’s mission has been to share natural history knowledge with the public, raising awareness of biodiversity, geodiversity, and the future of humanity and the planet through exhibitions, mediation, and citizen science programs.
• Expertise: The Museum serves as a scientific authority for the French State and for public and private stakeholders worldwide, guiding conservation policy and addressing today’s major challenges.

Current initiatives:

• Restoring Historic Buildings and Gardens: As old as the institution itself, the Museum’s historic buildings and gardens require essential renovations to safeguard the collections they house and ensure continued access to knowledge for all.
• Digitizing the Collections: To date, 11 million of the Museum’s specimens have been computerized or digitized, but millions more await processing. Completing this effort will make the Museum’s collections even more accessible to researchers worldwide, enabling further study and the continued growth of scientific knowledge.

Projects That U.S. Donors Can Support

With Friends of Fondation de France, U.S. donors can make tax-deductible gifts to support the Museum by contributing to the following projects:

• Collection conservation and valorization including images and associated metadata (virtual collections and databases)
• Support research and fieldwork activities
• Support education and outreach of the Museum’s collections and associated knowledge including citizen science programs and exhibitions
• Support the restoration and conservation of historical buildings