Digitising Kew's Collections

Taking Kew's eight million Herbarium and Fungarium specimens online for everyone across the globe to access, helping accelerate research into global issues.

Woman digitises a plant specimen from Kew's Herbarium

You can now immortalise a piece of botanic history. Donate to digitise a plant today and help us unlock nature's secrets.

Graphic showing the Digitisation Project numbers to date

We're embarking on our most ambitious project to date, a groundbreaking endeavour to digitise over eight million plants and fungi specimens, making our entire collection freely available to all around the world. 

Shaping the future of our planet

Our specimens underpin research into our greatest global challenges, helping protect the future of our planet. Making these specimens available online will allow many more scientists to access them, ultimately accelerating research to help:

  1. Combat climate change
  2. Save species from extinction 
  3. Feed our future, sustainably 
  4. Future-proof agriculture
  5. Discover better medicines 
  6. Protect critical ecosystems

What is most exciting is that researchers will soon be using our digitised collections to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our planet today. With this in mind, the impact of unlocking our entire collection will be immense.

   - Dr Paul Kersey, Deputy Director of Science and Project SRO

What's new?

Catch up with the latest updates from the Project

    Herbarium specimens either side of a graphic of Earth, half of which is on fire
    14 May 2024

    How herbarium specimens hold the key to combating climate change

    Paul Figg
    A herbarium orchid specimen gets its barcode scanned by a digitiser
    30 September 2024

    Orchid collection digitised! What interesting orchids have we uncovered?

    Paul Figg
    A drawing of Charles Darwin surrounded by herbarium specimens
    5 December 2023

    Unearthing the untold stories behind Darwin’s specimens that shaped evolution

    Ben Hirschler , Edie Burns
    A side by side of herbarium specimens with a photo of a beautiful landscape
    13 September 2023

    6 unexpected ways scientists see dried plants helping people and the planet

    Paul Figg, Dr Bente B Klitgård
    Mountain range view with sun rising in the background, illuminating the entire scenery or vegetation-covered ground.
    13 January 2023

    5 ways digitising Kew’s specimens can help save the world

    Paul Figg, Ben Hirschler
    Herbarium specimens sit to the side of a diagram of a brain
    24 July 2023

    How AI is revealing nature’s secrets by supercharging species identification

    Dr Isabel Larridon, Paul Figg

What's currently accessible? 

As of 2024, you can now access millions of our specimens via GBIF (including herbarium and fungarium collections) and our Data Portal.

How can you get involved?

Unlocking this treasure trove of data that dates back hundreds of years holds untold application and promise, but there's still a long way to go. Completing this project relies on donations and people. See the options we have below for you to get involved.

Help us digitise our prestigious collections

Get involved with these new opportunities

Volunteer

Become part of Kew's ambitious project and help make one of the largest collections in the world freely accessible to everyone around the world.

Become a volunteer

Donate

Donate today and immortalise a piece of botanic history that can aid research into urgent global challenges - helping protect our planet for future generations.

Donate today

Join

See what job opportunities are available to digitise our collection and play a part in helping scientists across the world access our invaluable specimens.

See job opportunities