NATIONAL CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON HERITAGE – A NEW INITIATIVE ON THE MAP OF POLISH MUSEOLOGY

Abstract

Not so long ago, Poland was one of the European countries which lacked a research centre which would support museum institutions. Meeting numerous needs, the National Museum in Cracow (NMC) had been sharing the resources of its Laboratory with other museum institutions. This is how the National Centre for Research on Heritage (hereafter the Centre) was founded. Relying on equipment and specialists from the NMC Laboratory, the Centre offers multilateral research on objects and collections to Polish museum institutions. It organises contests which all Polish museums may apply to with their research projects. The Centre focuses on three main activities. Firstly, it carries out technological projects comprising the composition and features of materials used to make works of art. Secondly, there are projects linking technological research with analyses of the state of preservation and environmental conditions in order to safeguard works or sets of art or which are particularly culturally valuable. The third activity consists in joint interdisciplinary expertise with external research units. The Centre has also undertaken its own longterm programme of research into managing the protection of collections in a sustainable and effective way. Within the framework of the programme, methodology and tools for the quantitative assessment of risk are prepared. The development of the National Centre for Research, based on the already existing potential of the NMC, allows the effective usage of collected research equipment and the adaption of its activity to the real needs of museum institutions. At the same time, an important area of the Centre’s activity is the coordination and possibility of using the potential of groups conducting research in the field of heritage at the Polish Academy of Sciences or at higher education institutions. The next goal of the NMC is to expand the Centre’s activity on conservation work.

Keywords

• research on heritage
• scientific cooperation
• technological research
• protection of collections
• museum conservation