Kew's Science Strategy
Our scientific vision is to document and understand global plant and fungal diversity and its uses, bringing authoritative expertise to bear on the critical challenges facing humanity today.
A simple but often overlooked truth is all our lives depend on plants and fungi.
Kew is a global resource for plant and fungal knowledge, so we have a published five-year Science Strategy. The full publication is available to download, or you can see a summary of our priorities, outputs and a list of our departments below.
Strategic priorities
We have three strategic priorities, to:
- document and conduct research into global plant and fungal diversity and its uses for humanity
- curate and provide data-rich evidence from our unrivalled collections
- disseminate our scientific knowledge of plants and fungi, maximising its impact in science, education, conservation policy and management
These priorities enable us to curate, use, enhance, explore and share Kew’s global resource, providing robust data and a strong evidence base for our UK and global stakeholders.
Strategic outputs
In addressing these priorities, we will achieve the following strategic outputs:
- Plants of the World Online portal
- State of the World’s Plants
- Tropical Important Plant Areas
- The Plant and Fungal Trees of Life
- Banking the World’s Seeds
- Useful Plants and Fungi Portal
- Digitising the Collections
- Training the Next Generation of Plant and Fungal Scientists
- Science in the Gardens
Our departments
The strategic outputs are led by multidisciplinary teams drawn from our six research departments supported by the Office of the Science Directorate, and the Library, Art & Archives. The six research departments are:
- Biodiversity Informatics and Spatial Analysis
- Collections
- Comparative Plant and Fungal Biology
- Conservation Science
- Identification and Naming
- Natural Capital and Plant Health
With this vision and strategy, we will make our scientific resources a global asset, bringing benefits to science, conservation policy and education worldwide.
Explore our science
Science projects
Explore our growing portfolio of research projects and programmes. You can browse by geographical region, by department or by global challenges.
Science staff
Connect with our scientists, over 350 researchers work here but you can use this directory to find those whose individual research interests and activities match yours.