London’s Natural History Museum appoints SER (www.sergroup.com) as its vendor of

choice to create a next-generation collections management system to help the Museum to

deliver on its vision of transforming the study of natural history.

As a leading global science research centre with over 300 scientists caring for more than 80 million objects spanning billions of years of history, the Museum already holds 20 million records representing 7 million specimens and needed a scalable CMS capable to handling its rapidly growing collections, whilst at the same time digitizing and improving crucial processes such as loans management, increase scalability potential, and automate efficiency metrics.

Initiating the RECODE (Rethinking Collections Data Ecosystems) programme, the Natural History Museum, London underwent an exhaustive four-stage public tender with 13 vendors before choosing SER and its Doxis Intelligent Content Automation platform.  Dr Steen Dupont, RECODE Programme Manager, describes why SER won: “On a human level, we felt a strong alignment with the SER team, who approached us with immense curiosity, were meticulous and professional, and displayed a willingness to go on this digital transformation journey with us.  They truly understood the nature and challenges of the tasks and our vision.”

“Technology-wise, it was all there: Doxis as a platform is incredibly configurable, which was a driver from day one,” continues Dupont.  “We want to build on top of a platform that is accessible to others, not just us.  We hope that other institutions can pick this up and adapt it to their needs.”

“Improving knowledge sharing – this is a mission on which SER and the RECODE team aligned on immediately,” says Dr. John Bates, CEO, SER.  “We are so pleased to support the Natural History Museum in establishing a modern, scalable and future-proof collections management system based on Doxis ICA – and not in the least because we are all huge fans of the museum!  We know that Doxis will empower them to deliver on their vision and make an important contribution to the greater good.”

“The vision of RECODE is to provide data to improve science, widen and build knowledge sharing, and contribute to some of the biggest questions facing humankind,” says Dupont.  “Solutions to these problems can be found in data associated with natural science collections: from understanding signals of climate change response to slow extinction rates, reducing risk from zoonotic diseases and minimizing degradation of natural capital to addressing challenges of food security.  SER will help us to create a next-generation collections management system which will benefit the community and further modernize the Museum’s collection management system.”