Our scientific expertise covers the study, sustainable management, and conservation of our natural heritage. Our research allows us to effectively advise political decision makers at a national and international level on developing adequate and sustainable measures for conserving biodiversity, on monitoring the state of the marine environment, and even on researching the possibilities of capturing and storing industrial CO₂ from a geological perspective.

We develop tools, models, and methods for monitoring species and biotopes on land and at sea. We train scientists on site and in developing countries, largely in order to help these countries to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity. Our institute is the Belgian National Focal Point for this convention (CBD NFP). It also represents Belgium in the negotiation and application of several other international conventions and treaties relating to the environment.

We provide researchers at other Belgian and European scientific institutions with the great research facilities that we manage. These include the Belgica (the national oceanographic research ship), as well as, of course, the enormous collection of animals, fossils, and rocks that have been built up throughout our history.