Science projects

Person holding scanner to barcode herbarium specimen.

Kew's Collections go digital

Taking Kew's Herbarium and Fungarium online for everyone across the globe to access.

Banking the world’s seeds

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership safeguards wild plant diversity and enables its sustainable utilisation through global partnership.

Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs)

Identifying and mapping Tropical Important Plant Areas in critical sites for plant conservation across the tropics.

Tree of Life

We lead Kew's research to expand and populate the tree of life for plants and fungi.

A scientist fixes a sensor on a pole, in a field of bluebells.

Landscape Ecology Programme: Nature Unlocked at Wakehurst

Connecting Wakehurst’s landscape, science, and visitors to research the value of nature for people, agriculture, and the environment.

The Millennium Seed Bank building exterior at Wakehurst. In front is a grassy verge covered in daisies

Native Seeds for Restoration: diversity and resilience in the UK

Supporting the effective selection and use of native seed in the restoration of climate-resilient, genetically diverse plant populations in the UK.

Large rock (Inselberg) in the distance with grassland and river in the foreground

Threatened Biodiversity Hotspots programme

Seed collecting and building in-country conservation capacity in five biodiverse hotspots in seven countries.

Kew’s Plant Assessment Unit

Accelerating the identification of plants threatened with extinction and increasing the knowledge available on the conservation status of less well-represented groups on the IUCN Red List.

Two men on a mountain collecting sorbus lingshiensis

Global Tree Seed Bank Programme

Conserving some of the world’s rarest, endangered and useful tree and shrub species as well as conducting vital tree conservation research in order to retain a significant resource for humanity.

Local Professor and 2 staff from Njala University in Sierra Leone, examining a highland coffee plant

Supporting climate-resilient sustainable development in Africa

The DEFRA-funded Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate project: 'Realising the potential of plants as nature-based solutions in African biodiversity hotspots'

Enset in the Agri-landscape of South West Ethiopia (Image: Paul Wilkin)

Modelling and genomics resources to enhance exploitation of the sustainable and diverse Ethiopian starch crop Enset and support livelihoods

Towards developing a resilient Ethiopian crop into a key resource for the future in both its home country and the rest of Africa.

UK Seed Banking

Capturing, protecting and restoring plant diversity in the UK, expanding the national repository for native seeds and making our collections, data and expertise available to support research, conservation and restoration work.