Natural history collections are hugely important as a scientific resource and infrastructure, as well as a public and cultural experience. They help scientists to study fundamentally important issues for humankind such as what is happening to biodiversity, how to develop new medicines, improvement of agricultural crops and the impacts of climate change on animals and plants. Collections contain historical data which serve as spatial and temporal baselines against which modern observations and collections can be compared, and serve as a repository where animals and plants cannot be readily found in nature, allowing us to understand how and why nature is changing and plan a more sustainable future.

The Natural History Museum, London (the Museum) has a vast collection of over 80 million objects, one of the largest and most historically and geographically diverse collections in the world. The collection covers multiple disciplines from botany and zoology through to palaeontology and mineralogy, as well as a substantial library, archive and art collection. The Museum collection is used by scientists all over the world to address fundamental questions about the past, present and future of life on Earth and of the solar system. Museum scientists (of whom there are more than 300) have, for example, been studying the genetic data of historical wheat samples to determine if ancient varieties of wheat are more resistant to pests, diseases and climatic conditions such as drought (Walkowiak et al. 2020). Similarly, by studying the Museum’s vast collection of bat specimens (of which around 10,000 specimens of three major families are currently being digitised), scientists can discover new information about known and unknown viral threats including where viruses originate and how they transfer to humans (Jacklin 2021).

The Museum collection can currently be accessed by scientists and the public but less than one per cent is on public display, and use of collections behind the scenes is primarily constrained to physical visits. For instance, in order to study a specimen, scientists have to come to the museum and find the item(s) (with the support of curators), then spend time to generate their specific data set before they can begin their analysis. Physical visits are clearly necessary and important, but they are also very time consuming and expensive. Analysis of SYNTHESYS+ project data, shows that the average project for researchers visiting the Museum involves around 10 days of researcher time and costs the researcher more than £3,500. This includes travel costs, which apart from taking a significant portion of the researcher’s overall visit time, also tend to be carbon intensive.

Digitisation of a collection is the process of creating digital data relevant to collections objects. There are different levels to which a collection can be digitised depending on the medium, purpose, availability of equipment for digitisation and budget among other things. Digitisation may include transcribing data to help collections be discovered, e.g. what something is, when it was collected, where and by who; creating 2D and 3D images; and further detailed analyses that generate digital data such as microscopy and computerised tomography scans, chemical, and molecular or genomic analyses. The Museum doesn't distinguish between 'catalogue' data and fuller digital representations of collections objects, they are treated as a continuum of scientifically useful information. This study does not differentiate the impact of different levels of digitisation.

Digitisation of collections provides benefits which vary according to the intended purpose of the digitisation process for an organisation. Benefits include:

• Accessibility: Physical collections can be made available to a global audience (which includes researchers and the general public) so that access isn’t restricted to those who are able to visit, saving travel costs and time.

• Searchability: The data associated with a digital copy of the collection through the process of digitisation enable users to find relevant content more easily and accurately, which helps to increase research efficiency, collaboration between researchers, and integration with other collections.

• Preservation: Using a digital copy can mean that users don’t need to interact with the physical objects as much as they would without digitisation, therefore reducing the costs incurred due to damage from handling and transportation of specimens. Additionally, where digital discovery increases demand for physical access or where only physical access can meet a research need, this access can be more efficiently and effectively targeted when more is shared digitally in advance.

• Interaction: As a digital copy isn’t restricted by the need for physical space for an audience to interact with it, digitisation helps to open up larger parts of the collections than previously possible to a wider audience.

Wider accessibility and searchability of the data held in specimen collections enables researchers to extract valuable information for conducting research activities and innovation in the economy across multiple areas such as biodiversity conservation, climate change and human health.

The Museum has already made progress in this area – as it stands, around 4.9 million specimens are available freely and openly on the Museum's Data Portal, and there is evidence that these are being used extensively by the scientific community as illustrated by Fig. 2. Indeed, over five years more than 28 billion records have been downloaded in over 427,000 download events via the Data Portal and/or major aggregator the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and more than 1,400 scientific publications worldwide have cited Museum specimen data via GBIF (GBIF 2021).

Figure 2.  

The Museum collections of which ~6% are digitised and already have high usage in scientific publications. Data for period February 2015 to October 2021.

The digitisation process creates valuable data for research which then leads to benefits for the economy. Previous literature has looked at the benefits of having greater access to data generally and the impact of digital data for science, using various approaches such as rapid evidence assessments, user-based surveys and cost benefit analyses. Analysis of data equity in the UK summarised by the OECD (2015b) suggests that greater access to data was worth £25 billion to businesses in the UK a decade ago and this was projected to increase by a factor of eight over the following five years.

The economic value of research data and the related contribution to economic development has also been studied. For example, Houghton and Sheehan (2009) looked at the effects of increasing accessibility to public sector research outputs in Australia, and estimate that increased accessibility generates a return of AUD 9 billion over 20 years (equivalent to £4.9 billion*1). Houghton et al. (2010) estimate that the open access archiving mandate for US Federal Research Agencies over a transitional period of 30 years may be worth around USD 1.6 billion–USD 1.75 billion (equivalent to £0.9 billion–£1 billion*1). These figures would be significantly higher than the estimated cost of implementing open access to the archives. Jisc (Beagrie and Houghton 2014) conducted a study on the economic impact of three UK data centres*16 and estimated that each of them could bring a twofold to tenfold return on investment over 30 years. A recent study by Beagrie and Houghton (2016) looking at the impact of the European Bioinformatics Institute (which makes life science data freely available to the global research community) estimated future research impacts worth £6.9 billion.

In order to value the benefits of digitisation, we have examined a handful of specific areas in which digitisation of the Museum’s collections can be expected to boost research, ultimately leading to benefits for the UK society and the world. Although these are only a subset of research areas through which the Museum’s collections impact the UK and the global economies, they are some of the key areas where impact is most likely to be seen*2. These thematic areas provide specific examples of how the benefits from digitisation can be expected to materialise in practice. The cumulative estimated value across these areas provides an aggregate estimate of the value of digitisation. We have looked at five such areas:

• Biodiversity conservation: digitisation can enhance taxonomic knowledge, which can improve the detection of threatened species. This in turn enables conservation efforts to be put in place which reduce the rate at which species decline, maintaining the ability of ecosystems to provide vital services for humanity.
• Medicines discovery: digitisation can improve accessibility of samples and consequently the range of samples tested for the drug discovery and commercialisation. There are very large economic benefits from successful drug discovery. Even if digitisation leads to a very small increase in the rate of discovery, the benefits are large.
• Invasive species: digitisation allows for better and faster detection of invasive species which have costs for the UK economy estimated to be £2 billion a year. Reducing the frequency of losses from threats can thus lead to substantial economic benefits.
• Agricultural R&D: Digitisation can help in the discovery and/or improve the understanding of the genetic traits of Crop Wild Relatives (CWR), wild plant species that are genetically related to cultivated crops. This can enhance breeding of crops which are environmentally friendly, have higher yields and are disease resistant.
• Mineral exploration: digitisation can improve the accuracy of existing geological data and help develop enhanced geological data from the museum’s rich collections of minerals, ores and rocks. This accelerates the geological discovery process and reduces the risks and thereby costs of exploration significantly.

The estimated total benefit in these areas exceeds £2 billion, as summarised in Fig. 3.

Figure 3.  

Valuing pathways to impact across five key areas: biodiversity conservation (£0.7bn–£1bn), invasive species (£0.7bn–£1.1bn), medicines discovery (£0.8bn–£2.8bn), agricultural research and development (£20m–£70m), and mineral exploitation (£20m–£80m). All estimates are in NPV terms over 30 years using a 3.5% discount factor.

These estimates can be corroborated by applying a more top-down approach, looking at the aggregate returns to investment in science. A comprehensive literature review by Frontier Economics (2014) found that the typical private rates of return are in the region of 20%–25% with social returns being two to three times higher. Applying these numbers to an investment in digitisation of £200 million*3, we obtain benefits ranging from £0.7 billion to £1.5 billion in present value over 30 years*4. This level of investment would generate discovery level data for the majority of UK natural science collections (an estimated 130–150 million specimens in total) or could be used to provide enhanced data for the 80 million items at the Natural History Museum – for example fully geo-referenced records, with images and additional analyses where relevant and associated data infrastructure costs.

An alternative approach is to quantify the efficiency benefits that digital data brings to researchers in terms of cost and time savings. Exact cost savings will differ between researchers based on the extent to which the availability of digital data replaces the need for physical visits or simply reduces their duration. On top of efficiencies for existing researchers, digital data can spur new research in multiple disciplines which would not have otherwise happened.

We use available data on digital downloads of Museum specimen records in combination with SYNTHESYS+ cost information for physical visits to produce indicative estimates of value. Our approach is to estimate what it would cost to recreate the digital data used by researchers (based on download statistics) by conducting physical visits. We estimate benefits ranging from £0.4 billion to £2.1 billion in present value over 30 years (Fig. 4).

Figure 4.  

Summary of investment and efficiency approaches to valuing digitisation of Museum collection.

It is worth noting that all our estimates of value are based entirely on data from secondary sources. They should be interpretated as approximate values. Furthermore, one of the most significant benefits of digitisation is that it can foster blue skies research in any number of areas which are impossible to predict and value ex-ante. These can be expected to come about through more and better linking of data across collections in the UK, EU and rest of the world including associated datasets in the fields of climate, population, health and others.

We have looked at only a small number of areas in which tangible estimates of economic value could be expected. There are many more areas which could and would benefit from digitisation but have not been considered in this study, including for example climate, and many areas of humanities research including art and design, and decolonisation.

Future research could add significant value to this work by studying the existing and potential user base for digital natural science collections data more closely, and attempting to track the ultimate impacts of the data use which goes beyond academic publications and onward citations. Survey work and case studies with users could be used to examine the impacts of specific digitisation initiatives. This would help to understand how digitised data is useful in practice and the exact pathways through which it can produce benefits for the user groups. In addition, this work deliberately focuses on the research benefits of digital data, but there are of course extensive wider possible benefits including education and public engagement.

We carried out an initial review of information shared by colleagues at the Museum followed by an evidence review looking at grey and academic literature on the benefits of open natural history collections data. These helped us to develop a theory of change/logic model which sets out the different pathways to impact/benefit applicable to investments in digitisation, how these are expected to materialise (and over what time period), how significant they are likely to be and who the ultimate beneficiaries are (e.g. visitors, scientists, taxpayer, society at large).

The theory of change shows (Fig. 5) the categories of inputs that go into digitisation activities along with the outputs, outcomes and ultimately the impacts that flow to the wider economy through the contribution of these activities to research. We define the components of the logic model as follows:

Figure 5.  

Components of the theory of change.

• Inputs are the resources that are used to deliver the digitisation of the museum’s collection for research activities. We expect inputs to include financial, physical and human resources.
• Activities are the actions taken, using the resources described in the inputs. We have kept the activities open to recognise that there can be different levels of digitisation activities feasible based on inputs.
• Outputs are the direct products of the activities i.e. the data generated as a result of the digitisation process. We have listed a few examples of what the outputs can look like but our list is not exhaustive.
• Outcomes are the short run effects of the activities. They can reach beyond immediate users of the outputs and can include changes in efficiencies, behaviours and new activities in adjacent sectors.
• Impacts describe the long run lasting effects of the outputs. These describe changes to the different areas that the research activities are intended to contribute to.

As well as understanding pathways to impact, the evidence review we carried out also allowed us to identify methodologies for valuing the impacts of digitisation and data which was useful for producing monetizable estimates of impact.

We reviewed the latest academic literature which looks at the benefits of open data and what increases in scientific research it leads to. We drew on a range of academic databases including Google Scholar, Econlib, JSTOR. We also examined grey literature including publications from governmental and non-governmental bodies as well as Frontier’s own previous work looking at the impact of scientific research (Frontier Economics 2014) or work by other agencies looking at the value of institutions which have undergone similar transformation initiatives such as the European Bioinformatics Institute (Beagrie and Houghton 2016).

As well as the evidence review, we consulted with experts at the Museum who provided input into the theory of change development in different areas within Life and Earth sciences. Feedback was gathered during a virtual workshop as well as follow up interviews with relevant experts. In total, we consulted with more than 20 experts at the Museum covering areas such as biodiversity conservation, climate change, mineral exploration and others.

Once the key pathways to impact were identified, we assembled all available evidence and data in a model which was used to produce estimates of the value of digitisation.

Estimates of value were produced in two ways. A top-down approach was used to estimate benefits at a high-level drawing on the literature looking at the typical returns to investment in scientific research. These were applied to the expected level of investment required to digitise the entire Museum collection*6 and/or the research efficiencies that are expected to arise as a result of digitisation*7. These are summarised in Fig. 4.

The high-level impacts were underpinned by examination of specific areas in which digitisation of the museum’s collections is expected to boost research, ultimately leading to benefits for the UK society and the world. These thematic areas helped to provide a more detailed and specific view into how the benefits from digitisation can be expected to materialise in practice. The cumulative estimated value across these areas provided further support to the value from digitisation estimated at a high level above. We looked at five specific areas: biodiversity conservation, medicines discovery, invasive species, agricultural R&D and mineral exploration. The end-to-end approach is summarised in (Fig. 6).

Figure 6.  

Summary of the approach, using a theory of change to guide a literature review and benefits modelling.

Digitisation of the Natural History Museum’s extensive collections can have an impact on the economy through multiple pathways that reflect the vast array of activities the museum is involved in – collecting, preserving, researching, educating, exhibiting. Digitisation can support and potentially enhance the museum’s work across all these areas, enriching the experience of the users who interact with the collections. The research community were identified through our workshop as a user groups who could benefit significantly from the digitisation of the collection.

Research has increasingly started to integrate digitised data, which have transformed the production of knowledge by making the process of planning, conducting, disseminating, and assessing research activities more efficient. At the same time, open data have encouraged the sharing and interlinking of heterogenous research data sets, providing efficient ways to model data for new and cross-cutting insights. Researchers are now better able to use data resources from diverse sources which improves the accuracy of scientific findings and helps to identify future directions for research.

The Natural History Museum’s digitisation programme aims to contribute to the open data movement by giving the global research community free and open access to the wide array of data contained in its collection of 80 million items.

Digitisation of a collection is the process of creating digital representations of physical specimens. There are different levels to which a collection can be digitised depending on the medium, purpose, availability of equipment and budget among other things. Creating a digital copy is one part of the process; digital records need to be annotated and categorised to make them useful to the audience.

Digitisation of collections provide benefits in different ways based on the intended purpose of the digitisation process for an organisation, some of which include:

• Accessibility: Collections held in a physical collection can be made available to a global audience (which includes researchers and the general public among others) so that access isn’t restricted to those who are able to physically access the collection, saving travel costs and time.
• Searchability: The data associated with a digital copy of the collection through the process of digitisation enable users to find relevant content more easily and accurately which helps to increase research efficiency, collaboration between researchers, and integration with other collections.
• Preservation: Using a digital copy can mean that users don’t need to interact with the physical objects as much as they would without digitisation, therefore reducing the costs incurred due to damage from handling and transportation of specimens. Additionally, where digital discovery increases demand for physical access or where only physical access can meet a research need, this access can be more efficiently and effectively targeted when more is shared digitally in advance.
• Interaction: As a digital copy isn’t restricted by the need for physical space for an audience to interact with it, digitisation helps to open up larger parts of the collections than previously possible to a wider audience.

As already noted above, one of the direct pathways through which digitisation can create value in the economy is through research activities. Wider accessibility to and searchability of the data held within specimen collections enable researchers to extract valuable information and/or enhance existing datasets for conducting research activities. This has the potential to lead to innovation in the economy across many important areas such as biodiversity conservation, climate change, human health etc.

Invasive non-native species (INNS) or invasive species are those that have moved outside of their natural range due to human activity and have negative effects on native wildlife and ecosystems. They are the second biggest threat to global biodiversity after habitat loss (RSPB 2021). In the UK, invasive species have been identified as one of the top five threats to the natural environment, which is growing with the expansion of international trade, transport and travel (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019). These threats have been recognised in the UK’s biosecurity regime and the significance of their economic costs is reflected in major international agreements (e.g., Bern Convention - Council of Europe (1979), the Convention on Biological Diversity - United Nations (1993)) ratified by the UK, which deal with the prevention of invasive species being introduced and established.

Biosecurity refers to a set of precautions aimed at preventing the introduction and spread of harmful organisms. There can be several pathways through which these species can be introduced into an area. For example, international movement is a primary source of invasive species as ‘stowaways’ or contaminants occur through cargo and passenger travel. Recently, climate change has also been recognised as a catalyst for introducing invasive species (Ashworth 2021). Biosecurity involves detecting such species during routine surveillance on common routes and in incidents with as much certainty as possible, in order to form an appropriate biosecurity response.

Digitisation of specimen collections can provide easier access to researchers to form a more comprehensive and updated database to identify species. In particular, faster and easier access to specimen databases can help to inform biosecurity checks and responses, and identify threats from invasive species correctly.

Biodiscovery is the exploration of biological material for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical properties in various fields such as agriculture, medical and pharmaceutical products, and cosmetics. It encompasses a stage in the medical R&D value chain that involves locating potentially valuable bioactive compounds in nature, collecting samples of native biological materials (such as plants, marine sponges, and microorganisms) and testing for chemical compounds.

Biodiscovery is an important source of leads for new medicines and is widely recognised as the most successful class of drug leads in the process of drug discovery and development (Harvey 2008). Around 35% of all drugs today are derived from natural compounds (Calixto 2019). In particular, in the area of cancer, over the timeframe 1940–2014, 49% of all new approved drugs by the FDA were either natural products or directly derived therefrom (Newman and Cragg 2016). The discovery and development of these drugs involves the collection of species of interest, and the study of them to identify compounds which have the potential to be a new drug. Samples of these species are maintained for further research as repeated collections are usually resource intensive.

Generally, biodiscovery for medical purposes is a multi-staged process which involves biotechnology researchers in the public or private sector working collaboratively with pharmaceutical companies. Value from the biodiscovery value chain is generated when the compounds from species are successfully commercialised and can be estimated by looking at two aspects:

• Research value: In most cases, the first step in the biodiscovery process is the collection of samples and identifying the ones which have the potential to be explored for bioactive compounds which can be used pharmacologically further down the value chain.
• Development value: This stage of the biodiscovery value chain represents the commercialised value of the species sample. This includes both the market value and health benefits realised through the commercialisation of the drugs. There are two important components of this process – 1) selecting samples of pharmaceutical interest and 2) successfully commercialising the drugs made using the natural components of the samples to generate health benefits.

Digitisation of specimen collections can accelerate the discovery and targeting process of specimens with useful bioactive compounds that might have health benefits by improving the speed and accuracy of identification. This then improves the accessibility of the samples and consequently the range of samples tested for the purposes of drug discovery and commercialisation. A direct impact of digitally accessible specimens will be with regards to the research value generated from the samples, with increased number of species being explored for bioactive compounds. This can then be expected to have a knock-on effect on the number of successfully commercialised samples which will generate increased health benefits to society.

Agricultural Research and Development (R&D) is a crucial component in making improvements to agricultural production systems which contribute towards shaping the future of global food production. Scientists and agricultural industries are continually undertaking research in plant and animal sciences to discover procedures that will increase livestock and crop yields, improve farmland productivity, reduce loss due to disease and insects, develop more efficient equipment, and increase overall food quality. In general, agricultural R&D takes places at the intersection of several primary disciplines such as microbiology, ecology, botany and zoology, as well as secondary enabling sciences such as chemistry and climate science. As part of this process, plant and animal specimens form a foundational element in the research pathways, and researchers increasingly need to draw on the expansive knowledge embodied in natural specimen collections. An increased understanding of plant, animal, fungal and microbial species will aid ongoing research activities through several pathways, some of which include:

• Discovery of species and genes that contribute to the transition to bio-manufactured foods;
• Greater understanding of micro-organisms enhancing yield productivity;
• Greater understanding of pests and pathogens;
• Discovery of new and more effective biological control agents; and
• Discovery and/or better understanding of native crop plants and animals with genetic traits that enhance breeding e.g. disease resistance, yield productivity.

Digitisation of natural specimen collections is expected to accelerate the rate at which researchers are able to discover and improve their understanding of different natural species for the purpose of agricultural R&D. Databases composed of digitised specimen data enable faster and easier access to crucial information (which, if not digitised, researchers may not be aware exist or at the very least may find difficult to access) that can speed up the research process. This can subsequently translate into substantial economic and social value as demonstrated by economic impact assessments of benefits of agricultural R&D.

Biodiversity is essential for the functioning of ecosystems, underpinning the provision of ecosystem services that ultimately affect human well-being. Ecosystem services can be defined as the benefits people obtain from ecosystems and can be divided into several categories:

• Provisioning services such as food, water, timber and fibre;
• Regulating services such as the regulation of climate, floods, disease, waste and water quality;
• Cultural services such as recreation; aesthetic enjoyment and spiritual fulfilment; and
• Supporting services such as soil formation, photosynthesis and nutrient cycling.

Biodiversity is in decline and there is evidence that the rate of decline may be accelerating. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2019) “around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.” (United Nations 2019).

In order to enable conservation efforts to slow or reverse nature’s decline, one needs to understand which species are endangered. This requires one to assess changes in populations of species over time in different geographies. This can only be done if the data are there. Museum collections can enable the assessment of populations because they have data associated with specimens (particularly where and when they were collected) and this can be used to assess changes in geographical ranges over time.

The digitisation of collections therefore accelerates the rate at which species may be identified as threatened and action can be taken to protect them before it is too late. Digitally available data enables faster and easier access to crucial information (which if not digitised researchers may not be aware exists or, at a minimum, may be difficult to find and access). This can speed up the identification of threatened species. The impacts of digitisation would therefore be highest for countries rich in biodiversity but poor in biodiversity data. And there are many species for which good data is lacking. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species contains over 20,000 species which are data deficient (Suppl. material 1) – these are species for which insufficient data is available to make a direct or indirect assessment of their risk of extinction.

The Natural History Museum houses vast collections of meteorites, rocks, minerals, and fossils. They help researchers in furthering understanding across different areas – defining the evolution of the planetary surface, characterising the climate system, and discovering mineral and energy resources among others. In particular, these collections can play an important role in identifying deposits of valuable natural resources for the UK and the world. The use of museum collections, often collected for different purposes, has enabled the discovery of mineral deposits which have significant economic value.

Collections are a valuable data base against which researchers can cross check samples in order to identify deposits of known valuable minerals as illustrated above (e.g. by searching samples from old closed mines which may no longer be accessible). The economic benefits that this brings are associated with:

• Efficiency of discovery: by having a reliable and accurate database to cross check against, the discovery of valuable deposits should occur at a lower cost and with lower environmental impact; and
• Efficiency of processing: once a deposit has been discovered, collections can enable efficiency in how this is exploited – e.g., copper typically accounts for only 1% of rock mass with the remaining 99% being waste. Collections can allow us to understand what other elements of value may be present such as Critical Raw Materials (within the 99% of rock mass) and bring economies of scale and scope to processing. Efficiencies of recovery will be a significant factor in reducing the environmental impact of mining.

As well as maximising the value of known materials, collections can also help in expanding the understanding of available materials which we currently know little about, thus supporting their use including in fast growing industries such as green energy generation. For example, a recent study involved researching the mineral incidence and behaviour of Scandium — a rarely used metal — which has enormous potential to be used in the aerospace industry and in sustainable energy resources (as a catalyst in fuel cells and in environment friendly lightbulbs) (Natural History Museum 2021a).

The Museum collection of mineral samples including rocks, gems, minerals and meteorites can be valuable resources for economic geology and scientific research. Digitisation can accelerate the process by:

• Improving the accuracy of the existing database: geological work requires extremely precise geo-location data in order to achieve its maximum impact. Relatively small deviations (as small as several meters) can increase costs of discovery by hundreds of thousands of pounds. Digitising the collection can ensure that information catalogued by the Museum are accurate, and that data are consistently recorded to be used in geological exploration projects commercially.
• Providing additional information on the specimens: more and better economic geology data can be captured for specimens such as their chemical and structural information: i.e. crystallographic group, elemental composition, and association with other minerals etc. which can again accelerate the discovery process and minimise costs by de-risking discovery, allowing the exploration projects in the industry to know when to stop).

Finally, having digitised information which is easily accessible can enable fundamental scientific research to take place and help level the playing field by providing open data to firms in the geological exploration industry, thereby enabling innovation in the sector.