The question 

The UK holds around 140 million natural science specimens, including 80 million at the Natural History Museum (NHM). These represent about 10% of the world’s estimated 1.4 billion specimens. Analysed at scale, these collections offer unparalleled insight into long term biodiversity loss and environmental change. But they are currently dispersed across 90+ UK organisations, making this kind of analysis almost impossible. Could we help NHM and the wider UK scientific community make the case for digitising these collections and for bringing the data together into a new national research infrastructure? 

What we did 

In summer 2023 we helped NHM develop and draft its bid for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to secure access to all-important funding from the UKRI Infrastructure Fund. Over an intense 2-month period, we broke down the key strategic arguments and rebuilt them into a structured and compelling narrative, backed by clear options analysis and detailed financial modelling.  

What happened 

The Infrastructure Fund bid was approved, with the 10-year, £155m DiSSCo UK programme formally announced by the UK Government’s Science and Technology Secretary in March 2024.  

We have since supported NHM to draft AHRC’s well-received Outline Business Case for the programme, which secured DSIT approval in summer 2025, including the all-important Economic Case. We’re now working with NHM to finalise the Full Business Case to release funding for this game-changing programme.