Bringing together world-class biodiversity research, education and natural history collections in an innovative new building complex.

UBC embarked on an exciting journey to become a world leader in biodiversity education and public outreach in 2010 with the launch of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.

You can be part of the journey.

The Beaty Biodiversity Centre, an innovative new facility on UBC's Point Grey campus, provides leading edge laboratories and equipment, and a biodiversity museum featuring Canada’s first blue whale skeleton exhibit.

Biodiversity Research Centre

Leading the effort to understand how the loss of biodiversity is affecting our planet.

The Biodiversity Research Centre brings together a team of world-renowned scientists from zoology, botany, earth and ocean sciences, microbiology and forest sciences. Together, they conduct innovative, interdisciplinary research into a range of topics, including the impact of global warming on ecosystems, how species evolve, the affect of human activity on biodiversity, and finding ways to safeguard ecosystems and minimize the loss of biodiversity.

The Centre's scientists and their graduate students have worked in less than ideal conditions for many years—researchers are currently spread across campus in aging facilities and outdated laboratories.

Thanks to major support from the Canadian Fund for Innovation, the BC Knowledge Development Fund and the Beaty family, the Centre now has a new home. In 2010, the Beaty Biodiversity Centre opened its doors to provide leading edge laboratories and equipment, as well as much needed meeting, graduate teaching and office space. The building is designed to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, for example all four floors of laboratories are open-concept.

By bringing a high-profile focus to biodiversity, the Research Centre can now attract the best and brightest senior researchers and young scientists to UBC--ensuring they will lead ground-breaking biodiversity research into the future.

Your donation can help fund fellowships and scholarships to ensure that graduate students can conduct ground-breaking research.

Beaty Biodiversity Museum

The first of its kind in Canada–a public education centre focused entirely on biodiversity.

The new Beaty Biodiversity Centre building, which opened in 2010, is also home to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Through a hands-on discovery laboratory, educational outreach programs, regular talks by BRC scientists and guest speakers, and exhibits featuring UBC’s amazing collection of more than one million natural history specimens, visitors of all ages can now gain new insight into biodiversity and its importance.

The Museum serves as a public outreach branch of the Biodiversity Research Centre and builds a bridge between the scientists and the community. Museum visitors are treated to a dramatic welcome as they enter the glass atrium--an 85-foot blue whale skeleton. To learn more about the blue whale, visit the museum website.

Ways You Can Help

For supporters interested in making a leadership gift, a number of dynamic spaces within the Research Centre and Museum are available for naming opportunities, including a dedicated student computer laboratory, open concept biodiversity laboratories, the biodiversity garden and courtyard.

Your donation can help fund educational exhibits and public outreach programs that will engage visitors of all ages, and support curatorial efforts to study, preserve and display natural history specimens.

Please contact the Development Office at 604.822.3404 for more information about the project, and for details on how you can help bring together world-class biodiversity research and natural history collections into this world-class facility.