Citizen Science as Institutional Infrastructure: Connecting Core Museum Functions

Natural history museums are charged with advancing research, stewarding collections, and delivering education and public engagement. Over the past decade, the Natural History Museum of Denmark (NHMD) has pursued these responsibilities through the strategic development of a citizen science (CS) research section, designed to integrate public participation directly into museum-based research workflows. This paper examines the extent to which NHMD’s CS portfolio contributes to the museum’s core mandates. Using nine case studies and a four-pillar assessment framework, we evaluate impacts across research, collections, education, and engagement. Our analysis shows that museum-led CS initiatives can produce peer-reviewed outputs, expand specimen and data holdings, support structured learning pathways, and engage national audiences through multiple modalities. Projects such as DNA & Life, Insect Mobile, and Microlife illustrate a progression from outreach-oriented activities to research-embedded, co-creative collaborations. The formal integration of CS at NHMD—enabled by strategic institutional commitment and external funding—has repositioned CS as a transdisciplinary connector between traditional natural history domains and the wider public. We argue that embedding CS within museum infrastructures strengthens research and collections while enhancing museums’ societal relevance and long-term sustainability as participatory scientific institutions.