This is a one-year research-based postgraduate course, run jointly by Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, a leading institute in systematics research, where the students will be based for much of their time.

The course provides students with a broad perspective of taxonomy and systematics, together with relevant practical experience. The course is aimed at students who wish to broaden their knowledge in this area before undertaking a PhD or embarking on a career in systematics research. The course runs alongside the MSc in Taxonomy and Biodiversity and students will attend key lectures of that course.  Students are fully integrated in research groups and attend lab meetings and research seminars.

The MRes Biosystematics is unique in that it comprises three consecutive 14-week research projects, which gives students the opportunity for ‘rotation’ through multiple research labs and types of projects.

While studies of the subject area are by hands-on research, wide coverage of the field is achieved by selection of one project each from three main areas, including: (a) specimen-based phylogenetics, (b) molecular systematics and genomics, and (c) ‘big-data’ bioinformatics and biodiversity informatics. The projects are selected from a list of eligible topics or are developed with the student's input. The very wide range of research interests of potential supervisors at Imperial and NHM ensures a broad choice of topics.

One of the projects will be based at Silwood Park.