The NTNU University Museum originates from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters founded in 1760. The museum aims to develop and share knowledge about nature, culture and science as the basis for sustainable development. The museum safeguards and manages its scientific collections and capitalizes on them through research, public outreach and education. The Museum is located in a classic museum building from the 1860s in the centre of Trondheim. The museum has strong research departments and large collections in natural history and archaeology.
Two botanical gardens are also part of the museum: Ringve Botanical Garden at Lade, Trondheim; and the Kongsvoll Alpine Garden at Kongsvoll, in Dovrefjell National Park.

The NTNU University Museum is one of seven university museums in Norway, and was awarded museum of the year in Norway in 2010.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum is a leading institution for collecting, preserving, studying and exhibiting natural and cultural artefacts from Norway and across the globe. The museum was selected as Norway’s «Museum of the Year» in 2010 and is one of the country’s six university museums. The University Museum collections contain 960,000 plant, animal and insect specimens, more than 8000 fossils, rocks and minerals and more than 500,000 archaeological and cultural history objects from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, the Middle Ages and more recent times. Here you’ll find everything from algae plucked by Charles Darwin to priceless cultural artefacts used by Fridtjof Nansen during his polar exploration to Greenland, and the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888. The museum’s researchers and scientists work to build our knowledge of the secrets of the natural and cultural world, and to share their findings with the public at large. Their efforts are a vital part of the museum’s goal to protect, conserve and maintain its rich scientific collections, and to make them available for research and for the public to enjoy. In doing so, the museum truly embodies its vision «to embrace the world».