Research and Collections

Research
Our place in the universe: Life, Earth, time & space. Our mission is to conduct interdisciplinary, collection-based research with the aim to expand our understanding of the geological, biological and environmental processes, which have shaped our planet and the life on it today.
Collections
The national natural history collections are the essential core of the museum. Collected over four centuries, the 14 million objects include skins and hides, skeletons, animals in jars with alcohol, insects on pins, plants on herbarium sheets, fossils, minerals, meteorites and more from all over the world. Additionally, the living collections of the Botanical Garden consists of around 10,000 plant species such as orchids, cacti, carnivorous plants and exotic trees.