Mission & Values

The mission of the KU Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum is to study past and present life on Earth to educate, engage, and inspire. Underlying our mission are values to which we are committed.

Our Values

Education

We value an understanding and appreciation of science and our role in fostering an educated and knowledgeable public. We strive to serve diverse audiences with meaningful and active informal education experiences, outreach, and research training that reflects best practices.

Excellence

We strive for excellence in everything we do: our research, our teaching, our outreach, our management, and our relationships.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility & Belonging

We strive to amplify diverse voices and perspectives which enrich our community, experiences and research.

Respect

We aim to conduct ourselves with integrity, dignity, civility, and accountability. We treat all people and partnerships, with respect, and we extend this to the collections in our care.

Science

We value biological diversity through these actions: responsible stewardship of research collections, through the scientific study of ecology, evolution, organismal distribution, extinction, and humans in the environment.

Transparency

We value transparency within our organization through open and collaborative decision-making and externally by sharing scientific data to the greatest extent possible.