New Perspectives: Exploring the potential for the Natural History Museum collections as a resource for arts and humanities research

自然历史博物馆(NHM)收藏了来自世界各地的7000万份植物、动物、化石和矿物标本。除了科学藏品外，博物馆还拥有一个主要的图书馆、大量的艺术藏品和一个重要的档案馆。博物馆是一个主要的旅游景点，致力于与学校和终身学习者一起开展公共展览和教育工作。它还因其策展和科学研究的质量而被国际公认为卓越中心。该项目旨在通过金斯顿大学艺术与社会科学学院(FASS)和自然历史博物馆(NHM)之间的新合作，探索博物馆丰富和独特的藏品如何进一步被更广泛的艺术和人文研究社区利用。FASS将促进NHM收藏的新鲜和创新方法，鼓励跨学科学术研究的新领域和新兴领域。这将通过设立一个特邀专家咨询小组和两个研究讲习班来实现。第一个研讨会将探讨研究主题的潜在领域，第二个研讨会将集中讨论如何向公众提供此类研究的成果。该项目的结果将是一份报告，提出一套跨学科的研究主题，供博物馆管理层考虑。这些主题将鼓励知识交流，有助于我们对自然历史收藏的理解。该项目的核心将是认识到，拟议的跨学科研究应补充自然历史博物馆目前的总体计划，并能够为博物馆举办的公共活动和学习活动做出真正的贡献。实施这类研究将为高等院校提供一个无与伦比的途径，了解博物馆、其历史、展览和收藏品，并将此类研究的成果提供给众多和不同的公众观众。咨询小组还将审议在国家历史文化研究中心建立一个历史和文化研究中心的潜在好处，以此作为管理和发展这类未来研究的手段。

The Natural History Museum (NHM) houses a magnificent collection of 70 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils and minerals collected from around the world. In addition to the scientific collections the Museum also maintains a major library, extensive art collections and an important archive. The Museum is a major tourist attraction and is committed to a public programme of exhibitions and educational work with schools and life long learners. It is also internationally recognised as a centre of excellence for the quality of its curatorial and scientific research. This project aims via a new collaboration between Kingston University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and the Natural History Museum (NHM) to explore how the Museum's rich and unique collections could be further exploited by the wider arts and humanities research community. FASS will facilitate a fresh and innovative approach to the NHM collections encouraging new and emerging areas of interdisciplinary academic research. This will be achieved through the establishment of an Advisory Group of invited experts and two Research Workshops. The first workshop will explore the potential areas of research subjects, the second workshop will concentrate on how the outcomes of such research could be made available to the public. The outcome of the project will be a report proposing a set of interdisciplinary research themes for consideration by Museum management. The themes will encourage knowledge exchange and contribute to our understanding of natural history collections. Central to the project will be the recognition that proposed interdisciplinary research should complement the Natural History Museum's current corporate plans and be able to make a real contribution to public events and learning activities held in the Museum. The implementation of such research would provide HEIs with an unrivalled access to the Museum, its history, exhibitions and collections and make available the results of such research to a large and varied public audience. The Advisory Group will also consider the potential benefits of establishing a Centre of Historical and Cultural Research at the NHM as a means to manage and develop such future research.