The Besançon Museum Natural History Museum

The Naturalium

Located in the heart of the Citadel of Besançon, on the ground floor of what was once the officers' building during the Vauban era, the Naturalium comprises six exhibition rooms with a total surface area of 175^m², dedicated to major themes that provide a better understanding of the concept of biodiversity and its challenges:

Room 1:
Diversity of life: what is biodiversity?
Room 2:
Classifications and relationships between species: all related, all different?
Room 3:
The drivers of biodiversity: why and how is it changing?
Room 4:
The balance of ecosystems: one balance, or many balances?
Room 5:
Small actions, big effects: threats to biodiversity.
Room 6:
History of biodiversity and science in question:
biodiversity research today.

Overview of the collections

Botany

Geology

Entomology and malacology

Zoology

History and teaching of science

Art and ethnography

The missions of the Natural History Museum

The Besançon Museum is first and foremost a Museum of France: responsible for preserving more than a million specimens in its collections, it participates in research, the dissemination of knowledge, and the promotion of the scientific and natural heritage under its care, with a view to passing it on to future generations. Its ancient collections now feed into databases that provide a better understanding of the evolution of geodiversity and animal and plant biodiversity.

Finally, it is an atypical institution, both because of its close historical ties to the University of Franche-Comté and because of the wide variety of fields it covers (botany, geology, paleontology, entomology, osteology, history of science and science education, etc.).

All these riches make it a place:

Conservation, study, and research, in close collaboration with teachers, researchers, and volunteers (who actively participate in the preservation and study of its heritage herbariums, for example);
Promoting its collections: although the Museum currently exhibits only a tiny fraction of its collections, sometimes due to their fragility, their dissemination is facilitated by digital projects (such as the RéColNat portal). It regularly contributes to projects with scientific and cultural institutions in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and the Jura Arc region.
Popularizing science and raising visitor awareness about environmental protection and biodiversity conservation: as a gateway to understanding living organisms and their evolution, its mediators work closely with institutions (the French Ministry of Education, museums, etc.) and associations (environmental and sustainable development education networks) on a daily basis.